


Heart of Gold-Titanium Alloy

by Sciencelings



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
Genre: Adoption, F/M, Familial Relationships, Gen, I can't help it, I killed Aunt May, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Mostly Fluff, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Other characters will appear, Parent Tony Stark, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Tony Stark Acting as Peter Parker's Parental Figure, Tony Stark Has A Heart, a little team cap bashing, adoption fic, im sorry, it is vague
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-29
Updated: 2019-02-03
Packaged: 2019-07-18 21:48:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 38,329
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16127408
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sciencelings/pseuds/Sciencelings
Summary: After the events of homecoming, Peter finds himself alone. But he is not as alone as he thinks he is. He may lose his family but he gains a new one and realizes that it's okay to be happy.AKATony Stark adopts some science children and gains a few gray hairs and smile wrinkles





	1. The Curse of Peter Parker

**Author's Note:**

> I KNOW I KNOW, WE HATE KILLING AUNT MAY, IT'S A TERRIBLE TROPE SO I'M SORRY. This will be the only fic that May dies because I love her. She is dead for the same reason that Ben is always dead. For Peter's character development. and plot. 
> 
> Anyway, I love Harley and I love Irondad so that's what this fic is going to be full of. It's not going to be completely linear so if you have any ideas for things that I can do in here I would be very happy. I already have a lot planned and I'll hopefully post once a week at least.

Peter had always had terrible luck. He assumed that it was just a curse after Uncle Ben died and now he was sure of it. He wasn’t sure how, but he had managed to go through four parents in less than sixteen years. 

 

There wasn’t anything that he could’ve done. Aunt May was just on her way to work while he was on his way to school. They were miles apart but Peter felt like he should have been there. At least so she wouldn’t have been alone. But now she was gone. Just like Uncle Ben and his parents. So yeah, he was definitely cursed.

 

It had been hell to get the call while he was at school. He left the high school without telling anyone as being tardy to class was the least of his worries. He had taken the subway to the hospital that May had been rushed to. She was gone before he even arrived. 

 

It was a blur from there. There was crying and an agent from some child related government service or something. Peter couldn’t make himself listen. All he heard was something about being young enough for foster care, not having any living relatives and an empty apology. 

 

It was deja vu of Uncle Ben all over again. He had the same reaction of an explosion of emotion including unbearable anger and sadness followed quickly by numbness. It took a little while longer to get to the acceptance part of grief. 

 

Despite being young and there being several years to get over it, Peter was still tormented by his parents deaths. Then there was the loss of Ben and he was back in the cycle. It was barely a year and a half to deal with Ben’s death before May joined him. 

 

Peter was not known for his healthy coping mechanisms. He ditched his foster home as often as he could, he went out Spiderman-ing for hours longer than he usually did. Eventually he just decided to run away from his foster home. He was successfully homeless for a week before someone called CPS on him and he was back in the system. That was the cycle. It repeated itself four times until he met Harley. 

 

Harley was his age and was the only one that treated him like he wasn’t made of glass. Harley’s mother died after they had moved to New York from Tennessee for a business opportunity. His little sister got adopted a years before Peter even met him. He didn’t take any of Peter’s shit when they were put in the same foster home. Of course, they became friends. 

 

Peter found out Harley was incredibly smart and had even helped Mr. Stark during the whole Mandarin thing. That was pretty cool. Harley was sarcastic and dry witted and was as much of a nerd as he was. Harley was also more confident than Peter could ever be. It was nice having more than one friend. 

 

It took a month of lying to Mr. Stark and hoping that the billionaire didn’t care. After the whole vulture thing, Mr. Stark decided to not have Happy in between their communications. Thankfully, the guy was surprisingly easy to lie to. As long as they weren’t face to face. Then it was infinitely harder. Peter was honestly surprised that he was able to last so long. 

 

He was out with Harley, avoiding their foster family, when he got the call. He looked at his phone and raised his eyebrows when he saw the caller ID that popped up. It was Mr.Stark. The caller picture that took up the screen was a rare picture of the billionaire looking ridiculous. He looked at Harley and showed his pseudo-sibling his phone. 

 

“What the fuck? Does Tony just… call you?” Harley’s eyes went wide and he looked at the phone. “Well, answer him! You better tell me what he says. I thought your internship was terminated or whatever…” Peter rolled his eyes and answered the phone. 

 

“H-hey Mr. Stark… what’s up?” Peter tried to sound casual but his voice broke and he stuttered so that didn’t work out so much.

 

“Hey kid, you okay? You sound nervous. Please don’t tell me you’re going after another animal themed super-villain behind my back…” Mr.Stark immediately sounded suspicious but Peter was kind of confident in his ability to keep big secrets. Not little ones, but the whole being Spider-Man one was relatively still a secret.

 

“I’m fine, everything’s fine…” Peter said too quickly before he covered the phones microphone and looked at Harley. “I’ll tell you what he says but can you give me a minute? You can get yourself a coffee or something…” He hissed as Harley rolled his eyes. 

 

“Only if you’re paying.” Harley nodded and held out his hand for money. Peter sighed and managed to get his wallet and give Harley a five-dollar bill. Harley grinned and strolled into a nearby coffee shop. Peter put his attention back to his call. 

 

“You are really bad at lying Mr.Parker. Tell me what’s up.” Mr.Stark ordered. 

 

“I mean, it’s fine, it’s not a Spider-Man thing or anything…” Peter muttered. 

 

“Spit it out. Come on, my time is precious. Did you get a girlfriend or something?” Peter could hear Mr.Stark smirking and he winced. 

 

“No… I learned my lesson after homecoming. No girl deserves my flaking and all that. I’m not particularly desirable anyway. Uh, It’s not that. It’s not… anything like that. Don’t worry.” He rambled. 

 

“When you say ‘don’t worry,’ I automatically worry. Just tell me.” Mr.Stark insisted. 

 

“I swear that it’s nothing. I’m not dying or anything.” Peter winced at his own words. He may not be dying but it would’ve hurt less if he did instead. 

 

“You better not be. Whatever, maybe if you ask your aunt if you can do an overnight thing for the internship, we can work on your suit in the compound. It’ll be fun.” Peter winced. 

 

“Yeah… will do. I gotta go, I’m with a friend and I don’t want to keep him waiting.” Peter rushed his words because the last thing he wanted to do was tell Mr.Stark what was actually going on. 

 

“I’ll find out what you’re hiding kid. I know that something is up. But i guess it’s good that you’re hanging out with your friend. Don’t do drugs, we don’t know how your body will react to heroin anyway, don’t take the tracker out of your suit and tell me if you get dramatically injured.” Mr.Stark ordered. 

 

“Yeah yeah, of course. I’m not doing any drugs if nyquil gets me sick. Maybe I should figure that out… I don’t want to get gravely injured and have no painkillers that will work. It’s too bad that Doctor Banner is off of the grid, he would be one of the best people to talk to, you know? If anyone knows about weird DNA, it’s the Hulk.” Peter rambled to try to convince Mr. Stark that he was fine and normal. 

 

“Yeah that’s a good idea. There’s a woman in Korea that could be good at that kind of stuff, we could discuss it so you don’t have to worry about it. Anyway, bye kid, play with your legos or whatever.” Peter chuckled as he hung up and walked to the coffee shop where Harley was waiting with two lattes. 

 

“So… what did he say? Why is your superhero boss calling you?” Harley took a danty sip out of his latte as he handed Peter the one that he got for him. Harley got Peter one of those brightly colored ones but he didn’t mind. The joke was on Harley as Peter loved unicorn themed foods. 

 

“He was just checking up on me I guess. I was his personal intern so he could be worried about me? I’m not sure. That wasn’t it, apparently he wants me to work on him with some things up at the compound. At the moment, It’s nothing too cool. I’ll tell you when I get to work on rocket boots or something.” Peter shrugged and indulged in his overly sweet drink. “I think we’re going to be working with someone in Korea to work on medical stuff. I guess it would be helpful to use Starktech in the medical field.” Peter smiled as he thought about it. 

 

“I mean yeah, didn’t Tony make those prosthetics for his friend? It would make sense that they would integrate the tech for other medical things. Imagine the kind of prosthetics he could make for people without limbs. Like dude, He could make an arm with more features than a smartphone.” Harley shrugged. 

 

“I mean, imagine a robotic leg with a camera on the toes or something. Just do yoga and you could take a selfie. Someone could just have one rocket boot.” Peter grinned. It was a silly image. 

 

“It would be hard to steal shit from you if it’s actually stored in your body. You could keep your tunes literally in your armpit.” Harley matched his grin. “I would have a compartment just for skittles.” 

 

“What about rocket powered roller skates as default transportation? That would be fun…” Peter imagined Iron Man with roller skates instead of hoverboots. He would have to talk to Mr.Stark about it. 

 

“Not quite practical but other than that… It’s a cool idea. Like extreme heelys.” This made Peter laugh a little. 

 

“If I ever get a hold of an Iron Man suit, I am definitely adding retractable wheels that are motorized. Then when Mr. Stark is fighting aliens or whatever, he can roll away from attacks.” Peter made a little motion with his hand to demonstrate the greatness of wheely rocket shoes for a superhero. 

 

“You better. If you do, you have to send me Tony’s reaction. I could see it being a perfect reaction image.” 

 

“I’ll do my best. Mr. Stark does have some stellar facial expressions.” 

 

“Why do you call him that. I mean, sure, he’s your boss kinda, but literally everyone calls him by his full name. I mean Tony Stark is a super iconic name.” Harley raised his eyebrow. 

 

“I was kinda conditioned to call ‘adults’ by their titles out of respect.” Peter made air quotes when it was appropriate. “It kinda stuck. Mr. Stark teases me a little for it but it’s not like it’s that bad of a habit to have.” He shrugged and realized with disappointment that he was nearly done with his colorful latte. 

 

“I’m not attacking you for it, I was just wondering. I mean it’s part of your whole goody-two-shoes polite kid thing right? You act all sweet and perfect but you run away from foster homes and get in fights at school.” Harley scoffed. 

 

“I don’t get into fights.” Peter rolled his eyes. “Or at least I don’t start them… or continue them… Dude have you seen me? I’m a wimp.” 

 

“Sure sure. Just because I’m six inches taller than you doesn’t mean that you’re a wimp. That just makes you tiny.”

 

“I’m not… tiny…” Peter muttered. Harley looked completely unimpressed. “Okay, I’m kinda small but tiny is going too far.” He admitted to Harleys delight. Harley liked being right and Peter had no problem admitting his faults. Even MJ practically towered over him. He had accepted that his maximum height would not exceed 5’6”. 

 

His internal conflict about his lack of height was interrupted by his phone buzzing. 

 

“You’re popular today Pete…” Harley was only surprised because Peter rarely got calls, so two in the same hour was not normal for him. 

 

“It’s probably Mr. Stark again. I haven’t told him what happened and he doesn’t like not knowing everything. I guess I must have been suspicious enough for him to look into it. I guess I’ll face the music or whatever the term is.” Peters heart fluttered with anxiety as he answered his phone. “Hey, Mr. Stark, that was quick…” 

 

This time Peter couldn’t make Harley leave so he was going to try to be discrete with the whole Spider-man stuff. If he had to. The problem wasn’t with Spider-Man though, It was with Peter. He was the one with the problems. Spider-Man was relatively unaffected. And that’s all that Mr. Stark cared about. Right? 

 

“Kid.” Mr. Stark’s voice was soft through the phone’s receiver. “What… what happened.” 

 

“I think you already know… Don’t tell be that you didn’t do some research in the last twenty minutes…” Peter’s voice was a little quieter than before. 

 

“I just want to hear you say it. I want to know what happened.” Mr. Stark’s voice was uncharacteristically reserved and it left no doubt in Peter’s mind that the billionaire knew exactly what happened. 

 

“Uh, A month ago, May was… she was in a car accident. I was at school so there was nothing I could do besides rush to the hospital. She was gone before I even got there. I don’t have any family so I got put in foster care. I ran away a few times… but I’m fine now. I have an almost brother and everything.” Peter really tried to sound convincing that he was fine even though he really wasn’t. Who would be? 

 

“Peter…” Mr. Stark sighed. Oh no, he brought out the real names, this must be serious. Peter had been almost exclusively called some nickname by him so when the real names came out, it was not to just be ignored. “Why didn’t you say anything… I could’ve done something.” 

 

“You’re my boss. I didn’t want to… I didn’t want to force you to deal with my problems. If I’m honest, I haven’t even called Ned or anything. I’m still processing it myself…” Peter muttered as Harley awkwardly left to buy a pastry or something. Peter wanted to apologize but Harley had left earshot quickly enough not to take notice. He’ll say sorry when he comes back. 

 

“This isn’t like not telling me about your homework kid, this is… this is big. I wouldn’t want you to go through that alone. Been there, done that, you know?” For once, Mr. Stark sounded awkward but Peter assumed that it was because of the billionaires emotional constipation. He wasn’t used to trying to comfort people. Peter appreciate the attempt nonetheless. 

 

“Yeah… thanks but, I don’t know. I’m just probably going to be in a temporary family until I can get my inheritance. Then I can buy an apartment or something. Apparently it’s not easy to get adopted as old as I am. And I’m not sure that I want to be thrown into a family for the rest of eternity. I just… I don’t know. Everything changed so fast and I have no idea what to do.” Peter found himself frantically rambling and stuttering out his ideas.

 

“Well it’s a good thing I don’t have a family then.” Mr. Stark commented quickly. 

 

“Uh, what do you mean?” Peter said slowly. 

 

“Peter, you don’t deserve any of this. I’m not just going to stand by and watch while there’s something that I can do. That’s kind of our motto right? Reckless superheroes and all.” Mr. Stark rushed his words but still managed to sound casual while he was changing Peter’s life. He seemed to do that a lot lately…

 

“Mr. Stark… I don’t… oh my god, are you serious? You would…” Peter could barely manage sentences as tears welled up in his eyes. While his mentor was emotionally constipated, Peter was the complete opposite. He’s an emotional mess but he didn’t feel bad over getting emotional now. This time he had a valid reason. 

 

“I’m as serious as a terminal illness kid. I can get all of the paperwork done in no time and poof, no more foster care.” Mr. Stark promised. “My only requirement is that you call me Tony instead of the whole mister Stark crap.” 

 

“I’ll try- I just-” Peter sniffled and wiped his tears away, obviously embarrassed. “I’d feel bad for leaving Harley, he’s my foster sibling kinda, we were paired in the same foster house. Apparently he met you during the whole extremis thing. Small world right?” Peter rambled because, holy shit, Tony Stark was serious about adopting him. 

 

“Wait… Harley? Like Harley Keener? Potato gun kid? He’s not only in New York but also in the same foster care system as you?” Mr. Stark sounded surprised. 

 

“Yeah, He said that you guys are connected. His mom uh, actually he can tell you himself. We’re avoiding our foster family and getting highly caffeinated.” Peter waved at Harley and motioned for him to come over. He rolled his eyes and took his time in strolling over. 

 

“You know I’ll have to talk to Pepper but I think that she will agree with me on this whole thing. I think that she would be fine with having children that aren’t in diapers. You met her right?” 

 

“Yeah, she’s pretty badass. I’m surprised that she’s not a superhero herself.” Peter tried to pull himself together before Harley came close enough to see the tears in his eyes. “So Harley just came over, wanna talk to him?” Peter was kind of anxious to let himself internalize what the hell was going on. And he wanted to see Harley react to talking to Tony. Peter still thought it was weird to call Mr. Stark by his first name but he would have to get used to it someday. 

 

“Yeah, hand me to the other kid. I haven’t heard from him since he was like eleven.” Mr. Stark chuckled as Peter handed Harley the phone. Harley looked a little confused as he put his ear to the speaker. 

 

“Hey Tony. What’s up.” Harley handed Peter the muffin that he had bought. Peter was not going to complain, he needed a lot of calories but he usually told Harley that it was because he had a normally high metabolism rather than a superhuman metabolism. 

 

“I know, It’s because we’re connected.” Harley smirked at the phone. Peter tried not to use his super-hearing to intrude on their conversation, but it wasn’t that easy. 

 

“Yeah, my mom died a few years ago. My little sister got adopted a while ago. I haven’t seen her in awhile. Actually I do still have that watch… come on, Pete looks like he just cried, what were you guys talking about?” Harley started out smiling but his expressions changed quickly. First he looked shocked. Then he put his hand over his face as he started to tear up. He whispered to the receiver of Peters cellphone.

 

“Really? Tony, jesus christ… no. I’m not disappointed, you asshole. Don’t apologize, you didn’t know… shut up, I’m not crying… fine, not as much as Peter is though.” Harley smirked a little at Peter while trying and more successfully hiding his eyes well up. 

 

“Shut up…” Peter muttered as he wiped his eyes again. He honestly didn’t think that he would have a family again. That anyone would actually want him. Then his childhood hero wants to adopt him as soon as he finds out what happened. It was, almost overwhelming. No, It definitely was overwhelming. 

 

“Thank’s Tony… I guess you’ll see us soon. I think that we have to go soon anyway, it’s getting dark. Yeah, I’ll make Peter text you all that stuff. Now go call Pepper!” Harley weakly put down the phone and grinned at Peter. 

 

“What the fuck just happened dude.” Peter’s comment made Harley laugh. Peter realized that this was the happiest he had been since Aunt May had died.

 

It felt pretty good.


	2. Light at the End of the Tunnel

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony adopts Peter and Harley.

Tony wasn’t sure what he would find when he checked Karen's personal settings. He thought that Peter was hiding an injury or trying to make Tony think that he was worthy of his attention. Peter definitely was, Tony just didn’t want the kid dying before he figured it out. 

 

He did not expect to find the kid never going back to his apartment and staying in a random home. Tony didn’t think that May had moved so he hacked the nearby security cameras an found out that after a certain point, May had never come back from work and people came in to pack important items with a forlorn looking Peter. He noticed that one of the items was a child-sized Iron Man mask that Peter held onto the whole time. 

 

It didn’t take Tony long to realize that May had died and that Peter had been first sent to a group home for foster children, he ran away. He was found by CPS and sent to a few different foster families that he ran away from until his current foster family with another foster child. He had stayed there for about a week so far, the longest that he had stayed in one place. 

 

Tony had never called someone so quickly or with as much urgency. He listened as Peter whispered what happened and Tony was stunned when Harley was brought up. Tony had been keeping track of him until he left Tennessee. Then he had no idea what had happened to the kid. He found out after a minute of talking to Peter. 

 

If he had only kept track of Harley... He could’ve… done something. He wouldn’t have had to be in foster care for literal years. He wouldn’t have had to been separated from his sister. 

 

In the end, Tony didn’t waste any energy in the decision. Tony’s parents had died when he was twenty-one and it was life destroying. Peter and Harley were only sixteen-ish and Peter has already gone through the same kind of loss. When Tony’s parents died, he didn’t have anyone. Rhodey was in the air force, Obie only cared about the company, he hadn’t seen Peggy and Jarvis in years, he had to mourn alone. He had to plan his parents funeral while his last conversation with them had been an argument. 

 

Tony was not going to let Harley and Peter be alone after what had happened to them. They didn’t deserve to be alone. Sure, Tony had no idea what the fuck else to do. He likely wouldn’t be a better parent than a foster parent but at least the teens knew him. It wasn’t just another random person. He had the money, the space, and he honestly liked both of the kids. They were both geniuses and had their own senses of sass and humor. Tony saw himself in these kids and he would do everything he could to make sure that they don’t end up like him. 

 

But first, he had to tell Pepper. His fiance would probably need to know if he decided to adopt a couple of teenagers.

 

“Hey Fri? When is Pepper free for a call?” The last time he called her during a meeting, she freaked the fuck out and almost stabbed him with her stiletto. It was a frightening experience. 

 

“At the moment she is not busy with anything urgent. I’ll call her for you. Before you can avoid it sir.” The AI responded immediately and started to call the CEO of his company. 

 

“Hello Tony. Did you miss talking to me?” Tony could hear the smile on her face and he smiled back. 

 

“That too. But I actually have to talk about something important this time. Like, actually important.” 

 

“Oh god. I forbid you from talking to terrorists or any of the Ex Avengers.” She ordered. 

 

“No, it’s not like that. I’m not about to go talk to Rogers any time soon and I don’t plan on another mandarin incident. You remember the Spider-Kid right? And the kid with the potato gun that I met while I was almost dead?” 

 

“Yes… where is this going?” Pepper still sounded anxious. 

 

“So uh, I found out today that they are both orphans. No family at all and they aren’t old enough to live on their own or anything…”

 

“Tony, I know what you’re thinking but… do you think that… it’s a good idea?” Pepper responded before he could finish his thought. 

 

“I think that it’s a pretty good idea Pep. You haven’t met them, they are… they’re good kids. They don’t deserve to be in this situation. I honestly think that you’ll love them.” Tony assured. 

 

“But are you sure that… you’re the best one to do this?” 

 

“I think I’m as good as they’re going to get. I can do this. I promise. I just know that I can’t do it alone.” Tony waited a moment for a response. 

 

“You called me in the middle of a work day while I’m on the other side of the country to tell me that you want to adopt two teenagers and you want me to be… a mother right?” Pepper sounded a little bit conflicted. “I don’t know… this isn’t as much of a split second decision for me. Can you… can I think about it? You can tell me about them? I can’t just run into this.” 

 

“Yeah that makes sense. I just, don’t want to wait for too long. I’ve already not known about them so so long, you know? We can talk about it when you get back to your hotel or whatever. Unless you have to go to bed early for tomorrow… when are you flying back again?” Tony knew that Pepper found it amusing when he was clingy. 

 

“I only have a few days left and I can tell that this means a lot to you so I will think about it. But you have to tell me about them. Maybe later though, I have a meeting in ten minutes. I expect pictures. I have to go.”

 

“I love you, you’re doing a great job at running the company and I believe in you!” Tony encouraged as he was bringing up as many pictures of Peter as he could. He would have to ask Harley for his own pictures. 

 

“I love you too. Now go to sleep at a decent time. If you try to be a better role model, I’ll be inclined to make the decision that you want.” Pepper chuckled before hanging up the phone. Tony sent Peter a quick text before googling how to adopt a child.

 

There were doubts of course, that he would end up like his father. But those doubts were vastly outweighed by Tony’s instinctual need to help the boys who reminded him too much of himself. 

 

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

Peter got a text while he was on the subway with Harley heading back to their foster home. 

 

‘Pepper wants pictures and I haven’t seen Harley in like five years so I have no idea what he looks like. This is my round-about way of asking for a picture of you and potato gun kid.’ -Tony

 

Peter raised his phone and took a selfie of the two of them while Harley was unaware. Then he took one where Harley knew what was happening but he wasn’t happy with it. He sent both pictures to Mr. Stark who sent an emoticon back with a comment about Harley being too tall. 

 

Peter showed Harley the message and they could not be blamed for smiling fo the rest of the trip back to the foster home. 

 

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 

 

Peter shouldn’t be surprised that Tony got the adoption done so fast. He probably paid for it to go faster. No one can stop Tony Stark from doing what he wants. In any case, even though their case was a bit rushed, it only took a few days for Tony to legally adopt them. 

 

Peter’s anxiety almost got the better of him while they were waiting at the New York City adoption office. They had arrived after Tony had been shooed into a room to finish up everything. Then they would sign some papers and that was it. Tony Stark was going to be his… his dad. That was pretty wild and Harley looked only a little better than him. Harley was probably just better at looking normal. Asshole. 

 

The hour felt like an eternity but when the wait was over, a wave of overwhelming relief flooded over him. They were herded into a room with Tony and before they could even greet him, they were instructed to sign a paper and were lectured on everything about the adoption but he couldn’t bring himself to listen too explicitly. 

 

Then that was it. The room was emptied except for him, Harley and Tony. There was silence for a minute before Tony wrapped an arm around both of the teenagers. 

 

“Okay, so uh, I don’t think that I have the ability to be the perfect father or whatnot but I do promise that I will try to be the best parent I can be. If nothing else, I won’t abandon either of you. My dad was kinda the king of abandonment so I’m focusing on not doing that. Are we all good with that?” He started to lead them out of the room. 

 

“I am totally on board with that.” Harley grinned while Peter wiped his eyes and gave a shaky thumbs up. Tony softened and held him closer and it was much more comfortable for them. It was harder for Tony to do that to Harley due to the teenager being taller than him. That didn’t mean that he didn’t try. 

 

“Let’s go home. We have to skype mom.” Tony grinned as they made their way to the red Auti and not for the first time that day, Peter wondered what the fuck his life was. 

 

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

Sure, Pepper had been surprised when she got the call from Tony with him passionately talking about these orphaned teenagers, but it really didn’t take long for her to know how much this meant to her fiance. Not long after the call, she was sent pictures of the two boys. The one with the brown hair, Peter, physically looked like he could be Tony’s kid, and the taller of the boys looked like he could be her kid. He had sparkling blue eyes and a floof of almost too long blonde hair.

 

Then Tony talked to her about them. It really didn’t take Pepper long to see how much Tony cared. The same Tony that cared about the avengers, the same Tony that cared about Steve Rogers, who hid his parents deaths from him. Pepper was surprised that he would trust anyone so easily after what happened but here he was, gushing over a few genius teenagers.

 

Pepper was excited for when the adoption went through and she was able to skype them for the first time. She only had a day left of being stuck in the Stark Industries headquarters in California but a day was too long to wait to meet them. 

 

She smiled when her phone buzzed for the video call to start. She answered it and immediately saw the familiar image of Tony’s workshop in the compound. It was a little more full than normal, with her new kids (weird) sitting next to each other working on something unidentifiable. When she answered the phone, they looked up at the holoscreen and Peter sent her a little wave. 

 

“Hey Pep! You ready to meet the baby Stark’s?” Tony looked a little more bright and happy then he had in the past few months. It was a relief for her, Pepper has been worried about him for a while. 

 

“I’m very excited.” Pepper smiled back. 

 

“Come here children, I want to show you off. We’ve been here for like an hour, and guess who just figured out how to add wheels to the iron man boots that fold outward! That would’ve been helpful when it got all frozen up.” Tony said excited. 

 

“It was Harley but the idea was mine.” Peter side eyed his brother who stuck out his tongue but didn’t refute the statement. Tony rolled his eyes.

 

“You should’ve done that instead of rocket boots. At least at first. I’ve seen your test footage.” Pepper grinned as both Harley and Peter’s eyes lit up. Tony looked a little bit dead inside.

 

“You are going to show that video or else I’m going to replace your coffee with decaf.” Harley threatened ridiculously, which made Peter laugh.

 

“If you do anything to my coffee, I’ll make you babysit DUM-E. With the fire extinguisher glued to his claw thing.” Tony assured seriously. 

 

“Then show us the video. And your coffee is safe.” Harley grinned mischievously.

 

“Please? Come on, you’ve seen me imitate Thor with a meat tenderizer and a shitty accent.” He looked at Harley who looked interested. “I’ll show you later. If we see Tony’s video.” This was when Peter hoped that Tony wouldn’t show the video. Mostly because he was in his Spider-Man mask and so far he had managed to not blow his cover to Harley yet. Thank goodness that he texted Tony about that so he could reveal it in a funny way or something. Harley was going to figure it out anyway. He was no idiot. 

 

“I’m being bullied.” Tony complained. “Fine, FRIDAY? Play video log: iron flight, test one.” Tony hid his face in his hand out of dramatic embarrassment. 

 

A holographic screen appeared in view of everyone, even Pepper, who grinned at Tony’s reaction. 

 

The video started with an almost decade younger Tony Stark with silver iron man boots and little handheld devices in his hands. He was in his old Miami workshop with most of it cleared out for the test except for Dum-E in the corner with a fire extinguisher. 

 

Young Tony said something about only using ten percent power for his rocket boots, he went flying backwards and bounced upside down on the wall before falling to the ground. The real nail in the coffin was Dum-E reacting to the accident by spraying Tony with the fire extinguisher. 

 

Harley reacted quickly by laughing hysterically while Peter hesitated for a second before trying to hide his giggles. The difference between them was just that only one of them felt a little bad for laughing at Tony’s humiliation. This seemed to be the moment the Peter realized that Tony was a human being and not just an idolized figure. He didn’t look like this was a bad thing. From her screen, Pepper looked calmly pleased.

 

“I send Tony that video every time he gets too cocky.” Pepper grinned. “There’s also one where he was drunk-” Tony interrupted before she could continue. 

 

“Only one video a day dear, don’t get them too excited. We have to spread out the embarrassment.” Pepper decided to take pity on him while Harley looked up at the ceiling while he started to talk to FRIDAY. 

 

“Remind us about it tomorrow Fri. I’m looking forward to it.” Harley grinned. 

 

“I’m not. Pete, you’ve been pretty quiet… that’s not normal.” Tony spoke up while Peter shrugged. 

 

“I’m an extremely empathetic person so I don’t find injury or embarrassment super funny. It was funny when Dum-E thought you were on fire though.” Peter smiled. Tony shrugged as he realized that it made a lot of sense. Sure, Tony knew that Peter was embarrassed about how emotional he got and how easy it was for him to cry, but he never realized how selfless it was. He felt for other people as much as he felt for himself. He wasn’t detached like Tony was.

 

“Yeah, that makes sense. Not everyone can be dead inside to deal with trauma.” Tony said casually. 

 

“What time is it there again? Have you guys eaten dinner yet? CPS will be making sure that you are treating them properly, and feeding them often enough is a good start.” Pepper changed the subject to her future husband's relief. 

 

“We should order pizza.” Peter suggested with a smile. “I mean if we’re worrying about publicity, we can’t exactly be seen in a restaurant.” 

 

“Good idea, what toppings do you guys prefer? Fri, take note.” Tony requested of his children, including his AI. 

 

“I vote meat lovers.” Harley offered. Peter just shrugged indifferently. Dum-E moved it’s claw as if it was trying to communicate with them. “Dum-E wants pineapple.” Harley interpreted.

 

“Dum-E is not making us get pineapple. Pineapple does not belong on pizza.” Tony made a disgusted expression.

 

“I like pineapple on pizza…” Peter muttered.

 

“So do I. Don’t insult our superior taste.” Pepper added with a playful smile. 

 

“You guys are monsters.” Harley stuck out his tongue. Tony smirked a little while Harley and Peter gave each other death stares for a long, dramatically tense moment before busting out into giggles. 

 

“I have to wake up early tomorrow for my last day at the office. Then I’ll be back by tomorrow evening. We’re having the first family movie night so choose a movie before I get home. I have to go, I’ll see you boys tomorrow, Bye!” Pepper hung up as they all waved back with Tony making a playful kissing motion. 

 

She was more excited to go back home than normal. 

 

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

Peter’s nightmares completely slipped his mind. Normally he could be hesitant to sleep but that wasn’t a problem for the first time in his new home. It wasn’t a problem getting to sleep but it was a problem staying there. 

 

He woke up with a gasp and could only hear his heartbeat until the voice of FRIDAY was able to pierce through. 

 

“Baby Boss? Would you like Boss to be made aware of your distress?” Her voice was softer than normal which he appreciated. 

 

“I’m… I’m fine. Don’t tell Mr. Stark. I just need to breathe.” FRIDAY was silent for a moment. 

 

“Very well. Please notify me if you require anything.” 

 

“Thanks FRIDAY. I promise I’ll be fine.” He panted while he stood up from his bed. He just needed to not feel trapped. The room felt like it was closing in on him despite being quite large. 

 

Due to being Spider-Man, he was able to silently sneak out of his room to pace around or something. He found himself in the kitchen and he soon realized that he wasn’t alone. Harley sat on a bar stool with a stark industries mug containing hot chocolate

 

“Bad night?” Harley said quietly. 

 

“Yeah. You too?” Peter started making his own cup of the stuff. He found an Iron Man mug and smiled a little. 

“Yup. Wanna talk about it?” Harley took a sip of his hot drink and Peter was glad for the darkness. It was harder to see the tear tracks on his cheeks in the dim darkness. 

 

“Not… Not today. What about you? Do you need to talk about it?” Peter poured the hot water in his cup and blew off some of the steam. 

 

“Nah, Maybe eventually we should have a therapy night or something. With Tony. Maybe Pepper… I don’t know, we’re all a little fucked up.” He shrugged while Peter took a long sip of his hot chocolate which was a little too hot. He didn’t react as the pain grounded him a bit more and he felt less like he was stuck in his head. 

 

They sat in a comfortable silence for a while as they recovered from their night. They knew that they weren’t going to judge each other, they knew that they were safe and that they didn’t want to be completely alone. And that night was confirmation that they weren’t alone. They would hopefully never be alone, ever again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm keeping these chapters longer (hopefully) and I'll probably only update once a week alongside my other fic. I just had time to write this weekend so I wrote a little more. I would love to know how you guys feel or if you guys want me to add certain moments in this fic. I already have a lot planned including a Pepperony Wedding so that one is going to be super fun. There will be Ned and MJ and all of that, the ex-avengers might make an appearance, Shuri will definitely meet the science kids and Harley will figure out that Peter is Spider-Man. There will be a plot eventually but don't worry about it yet. 
> 
> Anyway, I love you all and I'm really glad that people liked the first chapter. I wasn't sure how well it was going to be received as this is a very familial type of fic and everyone loves ships, so I was surprised that this got any attention at all tbh. Follow my tumblr (GayGemGrump) for art with this fic and with my other fic. You can also message me on there and I will definitely say hi. I can't promise that I will be good at continuing the conversation. 
> 
> I live on comments so if you have any thoughts, please tell me!


	3. The Illusion of Normalcy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harley joins Peter at school and they have their first family movie night.

With everything that happened with Peter, He was surprised that school had been the only constant. Everything was still the same, Ned was the same, although he was suspicious about Peter’s odd behavior, MJ was the same, Academic Decathlon was still the same, unfortunately, this meant that Flash was also the same. 

 

The first day that Peter went to school as a Stark and with his new brother, It went a little worse than usual. First there was a fire alarm malfunction, with his enhanced hearing, it was horribly painful, Then some teacher used way too much peppermint oil to make her room smell good which made Peter have a bit of an allergic reaction, and finally Flash happened. 

 

Peter was bringing Harley to Midtown tech for the first time and everything was fine. Ned and MJ got along with Harley just fine, Harley and MJ seemed to have a staring contest or just some weird silent conversation and Ned was just happy to have another friend that wouldn’t tease him for being fat or whatever. For a while, everything was fine and Neither Ned nor MJ knew about the whole world changing situation for Peter. And he wasn’t going to tell them until he was able to process it all himself.

 

Everything was fine. Until Flash saw Peter and decided that it was time to continue the cycle that had started in middle school. 

 

“Hey Penis! Did you recruit someone for your little bitch club? I’m surprised you can get anyone to hang around you!” Flash strolled up casually. But Peter automatically winced and stepped backward. Harley seemed to notice the subtle movement and his face hardened as he looked towards Flash. 

 

“If that was our club don’t you think you would be invited?” MJ gave Flash a hard stare. Peter never fought back when Flash came at him, he very rarely even talked back. When he did, he didn’t go home with anything less than a black eye. Needless to say, he was used to not fighting back. After years of being physically bullied he had realized that fighting back got you hurt a whole lot worse. 

 

“Watch it weirdo, I’m surprised that you have friends too, do you feel included now?” Flash growled. “So what’s with the extra dork?” 

 

“I just transferred in.” Harley said with a harsh smile. “I think you should stay away from us.” Flash reacted by making a face and looking back at Peter. 

 

“So you got yourself a bodyguard boyfriend? Is he supposed to scare me? I could always get Skip over here to teach you a lesson.” Flash grinned as Peter paled a little. 

 

“Just leave us alone…” Peter muttered. He had bad experiences with Skip and he was a little more cowardly than normal. He didn’t want Harley to see him like this, on the edge of a panic attack but he couldn’t exactly help it. He would always wince when anyone called him ‘Einstein’ or when Skip’s name was mentioned. He was Spider-Man so why was he so afraid of one person? Even with super-strength he was always just too weak… 

 

“What will you do Parker? Go cry to your uncle? Your parents? Or right, They got sick of you and died instead of dealing with you.” Flash hissed. He seemed extra angry today, he probably had another problem with his dad. Peter had heard that Flash’s father was abusive or something and he took his anger out on Peter. The family comment hurt more than Flash was probably aware. It wasn’t untrue at this point… 

 

“Get away from him.” Harley pushed Flash away from Peter and put himself in between them. Harley was taller than Flash so he was a little more threatening than anyone else in the group. “Get away from him now.” Harley looked angry but not quite explosive. Eventually Flash backed away with a growl and all the attention was back to Peter. He dreaded it. Dreaded the questions and how everyone was worried about him…

 

“Hey Pete, You okay?” oop there it is. Peter sighed. 

 

“Sorry about him… yeah I’m fine. Can we just ignore that?” Harley gave him a look like, ‘you are going to tell me or else I’m telling Tony.’ Peter shrugged in silent response. Harley nodded and, to Peter’s relief, started a new conversation with Ned and MJ.

 

And everything was fine. Until he would have to confront Harley about it. He was just glad that he didn’t get injured or something because then Mr. Stark would definitely find out. It was hard for him to hide physical injuries from Tony, as he wore a spider super-suit daily made by the man. The suit had an AI and knew when shit went down, even if it was just a bruise. He could lie all the live long day but Karen would tattle immediately if he got hurt while not on patrol. 

 

Peter was kind of flattered by how much of a helicopter parent Tony was. Sure, it was borderline stalkerish but Peter assumed that constantly checking up on him and changing up his suit was how he dealt with the guilt of not being there for Peter when he needed it. Peter could understand guilt. He and Tony really had that in common. 

 

Guilt was their main motivation for everything. Peter became Spider-Man after he blamed himself for his uncle's death and Tony become Iron Man because he felt guilty for his company smuggling weapons behind his back. Neither of them really began because it was the right thing to do. It was because they both messed up and wanted to be better. Also they were both selfless, reckless, and anxiety-ridden messes. No wonder they got along. 

 

Peter was not excited for Tony to find out about what happened at school. He would find out eventually like he did with May but Peter was going to try to prolong it for as long as possible. Why deal with your problems when you can just ignore them? Fool-proof logic right? Peter knew that he was screwed. Either Harley would make him talk or he would tell Tony about what happened and Peter desperately didn’t want to be a problem. 

 

Tony didn’t sign up to be constantly bothered by Peter’s problems. If Peter could help it, he was going to make sure that Tony didn’t regret helping him. Peter was not going to disappoint him again. 

 

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

Peter and Harley refused to let Tony come pick them up from school. He had to deal with getting ready to meet Pepper anyway and he had to have a few practice rounds of cooking. He wasn’t too bad at it, it had just been a while. Apparently cooking reminded Tony of his mother and Ana Jarvis and he had avoided doing it ever. 

 

Peter almost laughed when Tony sent a text about him trying, and failing, to make his one of his mother’s Italian recipes. 

 

Harley didn’t grill him on the subway and Peter just hoped that he had either completely forgotten or wasn’t going to confront him about Flash. Peter wasn’t stupid enough to hope too much but he was good at being optimistic. 

 

Happy met them at the edge of Manhattan to drive them upstate. Sure the way to and from school was long but Peter found that he didn’t mind. He would go from extremely talkative with Harley and Happy to being silent for long amounts of time. It felt like forever until they got to the practically empty Avengers compound. 

 

Once they entered the compound without Happy in tow, Harley turned to Peter and gave him a look before bringing up what he was dreading. 

 

“So what that shit at school about?” Harley asked in a voice that sounded like he was interrogating his brother. 

 

“You met Flash. That’s really it, We met in like fifth grade and he decided that he hated me from then on.” Peter shrugged. Harley looked suspicious, there was obviously more to the story. Flash mentioned someone that scared Peter and Harley's big brother instincts had reignited with vigor. 

 

Sure, He wasn’t much older than Peter, but he was still immediately protective. Harley had learned to stick up for himself to bullies a long time ago and he had a certain hatred for people like Flash. Besides the way Peter had flinched at the mention of a name really struck a nerve in him.

 

“Fine, Don’t tell me then. Someday you’ll tell me and you won’t just explode from internalized trauma.” Harley sighed. Before he could say anything else, they were interrupted by Tony. 

 

“Who’s going to explode from internalized trauma? Because if it’s one of you first I am going to be surprised.” Tony strolled in casually. He had been notified by FRIDAY at their arrival and had come to meet them. 

 

“It’s Peter!” Harley immediately shouted. 

 

“What the hell dude... “ Peter gently hit his brother, being a little too careful with his super-strength. 

 

“That’s why you get bullied! You’re so weak man!” Harley teased. Peter almost smirked but it could give him away so he held it back. He could put a hole in a concrete wall without breaking a sweat if he wanted to. Strength wasn’t something he lacked in any way. 

 

“You’re getting bullied?” Tony turned to Peter with a stunned expression. 

 

“Shit Harley… Yeah but I’m fine. It’s not that bad.” Peter sighed, he just wanted to help make Italian food before Pepper landed her private plane. He didn’t want to unload everything about Flash and much worse, Skip. He wanted to make and likely burn some garlic bread and meet Pepper instead. 

 

“How bad is it Harley.” Tony knew that Peter would not say anything. He would pretend that nothing was wrong and that everything was fine when it was not. He had done the same thing in Germany at the airport when he was smacked to the ground by giANT-man. He said he was fine and later found out that Peter had broken two ribs. The kid was probably too much like him… 

 

“Verbal and attempted physical violence, mentioning past trauma, you know, the whole orphan thing… I had to get in between them to keep this Flash guy from slamming little Pete here into a wall. He approached unprovoked and just seemed interested in the fact that Peter has a new friend.” Harley stated like he was reading out a serious case file about a murder or something. 

 

“Come on guys… I’m fine. I don’t want to talk about it, I want to accidentally set something on fire in the lab. I’m not letting you-” Peter motioned to Tony, “find out where he lives and threaten him with an Iron suit, and you-” he pointed at Harley, “are not going to beat him up in my honor. I appreciate the concern, but this isn’t something that you guys have to dramatize.” 

 

“Peter, would it be too dramatic to tell the school overlords or find a way to at least get the kid suspended for his sins?” Tony asked in monotone.

 

“Technically no, but I don’t think you can do that yet as the school hasn’t updated our paperwork. It’ll probably take the school a few days to change the whole parental situation on our records. Or at least on my records since I didn’t just get in.” Peter shrugged. 

 

In the one class that did attendance, he was still ‘Peter Parker’ instead of the more recent development of ‘Peter Stark.’ It was weird to think about, but the solution was just not to think about it. He hadn’t fully realized it until they were doing roll-call in his Spanish class. He only had a mild freakout, meaning that it only took him an hour to snap out of a spiraling daze of thoughts. 

 

“Yeah, I was still Keener. I guess they pulled from my normal people schools records or something. It’s gonna be a weird day when we’re just suddenly referred to as Stark's. This is going to be fun with the whole celebrity thing. What were we talking about?” Harley went on a little tangent. 

 

“Peter’s bullying problem. I’ll have to call the school to get the records in or whatever. I guess it’s only been a couple days so it’s not completely unreasonable. I mean this is the american school system that we’re talking about. They haven’t been competent at anything lately.” Tony sighed, frustrated but seemingly not at the kids. His kids. 

 

“Well, you’re not wrong. America is just one fuck up after another. I source Captain America as proof.” Harley said, throwing shade at the criminal super-soldier. Peter noticed Tony tense up a little at the mention of his former teammate. 

 

“Well, Pepper will be here in a few hours so we better start cooking early enough to order a pizza when we fail.” Peter blurted out. He was surprised that they let him drop the main subject. They all must have been too ADHD to focus on a single thing. 

 

“I thought you were the optimistic one! Come on, we can’t fuck up pasta that badly.”

 

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

It turned out they could fuck up pasta pretty badly. The first time, the spaghetti caught on fire, the second time, the pasta was way too overcooked, like, completely dissolved, the third time it wasn’t disastrous so they counted it as successful. Harley had to stop Tony from over-seasoning the hell out of the tomato sauce and Tony had to stop Harley from cutting his fingers off. Peter was proudly responsible enough to catch himself before he fucked up. Mostly because he was overthinking and doubting himself constantly. He had to have looked at the recipe a thousand separate times.

 

All in all, the experience was fun and none of them were injured in the attempt to make food. Of course, time went by too quickly and before they knew it, they were heading outside to the helipad to meet Pepper who was approaching in her private plane. 

 

It was dark outside and as it was autumn, it was starting to get cold. Peter, the most sensitive to the cold, was shivering after only a minute in the mild chill of the night. He was a dumbass that didn’t spend a passing thought that a nerdy t-shirt would not be enough to go outside in. Thankfully, and a bit embarrassingly, Tony shrugged off his suit jacket and put it over Peter’s shoulders. Because, of course Tony had been in a suit matched with a band t-shirt all day. Peter quietly thanked him as the plane landed on its respective landing pad. 

 

The planes door opened and stairs unfolded out before the tall, high heeled woman started to make her way down to them. Once Pepper spotted them, she smiled and slightly sped up her pace. Not by much, she was wearing impressive stilettos.

 

“Did I keep my boys waiting for too long?” Pepper stopped in front of them and noticed Tony’s jacket around Peter’s shoulders. “Let’s get inside, I am starving.” She wrapped one arm around Harley and one around Peter, successfully making Tony pout. 

 

Pepper led them inside and if she was disgusted by the homemade food, she didn't show it. She made a comment about how it was an improvement from an omelet that Tony had made for her several years ago and Tony was extra defensive about it. It was just funny to Peter and Harley. 

 

The meal wasn’t too awkward and it was actually edible which was a plus. They mostly argued about what movie they were going to watch. Pepper was the most chill and Peter just assumed that she was just analyzing everyone else's choices. Peter obviously wanted to watch star wars episode four as it was his favorite movie of all time, Harley wanted to watch some shitty horror movie and Tony wanted to watch a good batman movie just so that he could make fun of the character. 

 

It took them an hour just to settle with Star Wars. The choice could’ve been influenced by what had happened earlier that day but Peter wasn’t going to complain. It could’ve also been influenced by Peter’s puppy eyes. He knew how to get what he wanted. He was fully aware of his particular style of manipulation. It worked didn’t it? 

 

Harley went to pop way too much popcorn while Pepper scolded Tony for trying to have coffee with popcorn. Who has coffee with popcorn? Peter asked FRIDAY to get ready to play the movie and he brought the blanket and pillows from his room. He wanted to achieve maximum comfort to fully enjoy his favorite movie. 

 

Harley came into the room with his arms full of buckets of popcorn and a massive bag of M&Ms. Pepper had changed into a much more comfortable looking outfit and even Tony was dressing down. He changed his dress pants to a pair of brightly colored Iron Man pajamas. Peter was not going to mention that he had the exact same pair. 

 

They all got comfortable with Peter in between Harley and Tony. The rooms lights dimmed and the movie started with the iconic orchestral version of a jumpscare and the plot crawl. Peter couldn’t stop himself from sprouting out facts about the movie any more than Tony could stop himself from talking about the probability of certain events and technologies. He was especially confused by R2D2 and how the droid was able to easily maneuver through the desert and other complex terrains.

 

It only took Peter an hour to fall asleep. He unconsciously leaned on Harley who was also mere moments away from falling asleep. Tony and Pepper didn’t even notice until they realized that Peter had been awfully quiet. Tony looked over to see both of his kids leaning against each other, dead to the world with Tony's borrowed suit coat wrinkled between them. 

 

Tony smiled a little as he motioned for FRIDAY to take a picture. The sound of the movie was turned down and Tony realized how soft he had become. Howard wouldn’t have been proud but when was he ever. Tony never really thought that he would want something like this. Now that he had it, he realized why people wanted it.

 

Humans crave love. Whether it’s platonically, romantically or whatever it’s called when a dog really wants to meet you. Love is a fundamental part of humanity. Tony was thankful that he could still feel it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm very happy with how good this is being received. I love you all and I value comments the most so do that if you want me to try to update more often. I have a whole lot planned for this fic so I apologize if it's slow at first. There will be plot someday lol. Follow my tumblr (GayGemGrump) for art and plenty of pro Iron Man and Iron Dad posts. Follow my Instagram (GayGemGrumps) and check out my story for constant art updates that I don't post on tumblr. 
> 
> Comment if you want more. I love you!


	4. Mandatory Revelation

Peter woke up in his bed. It wouldn’t have been odd if he actually remembered going to bed. He distinctly remembered falling asleep on the couch while watching Star Wars. He assumed that he had been woken up and was too tired to remember going to bed. He looked to his phone and realized that he had woken up only a few minutes before his alarm. He groaned and tried to pretend to sleep for two minutes before loud music exploded from his phone. 

 

Living far away from his preferred school meant that he had to get ready much earlier than normal. It sucked but Peter would much rather be going to Midtown with his friends than some eccentric science school that was closer to the compound. Maybe he could convince Tony to get an apartment in Manhattan… 

 

Peter trudged out of bed and took probably too long fixing and gelling his hair down. He yawned every five minutes as Tony made him eat breakfast. He actually had to eat enough with the whole enhanced metabolism thing. 

 

Harley just had coffee and surprisingly looked worse than Peter did. Of course, Pepper was up and perfectly put together as she too had to work before the sun came up. Tony was closer to the Harley on the spectrum of morning person. He did not look like he wanted to be awake or alive. 

 

They were rushed into one of Tony’s Auti’s because he apparently wanted to make sure that the school had made all of the changes in person. Like no one was going to notice Tony Stark chilling out at a nerd school. Peter prepared to hear about the rumor at school and pretended that he wouldn’t be a part of it. 

 

It was faster than Happy driving them and then taking the subway. By probably too long. They were at least forty-five minutes early and they gained a few stares after walking out of a fancy car and even more stares when Tony parked and got out of said fancy car. 

 

Peter would’ve pretended not to acknowledge the famous Tony Stark™ but before he could, the billionaire did the half hug thing with him and Harley as if he were claiming them. It was kind of awkward and Peter knew that people were taking pictures. He knew even before Ned texted him with several emojis and a WTF dude. Apparently a picture had made it to the academic decathlon group chat. Peter said that he would explain everything when he comes to school. That was going to be an exciting conversation.’My last relative died then I went into foster care before my actual hero said fuck it and adopted me and my friend brother.’ After everything he’s been through starting with the spider bite, this wouldn’t be as ridiculous as it would’ve once been.

 

Peter decided to accept his fate and Harley still wasn’t awake enough to give a shit. Tony led them to the main office, needing only a little directional help from Peter. Tony confronted a stuttering secretary who helped him with the whole updated records problem. The whole process was pretty calm and no one else was freaking out so Peter felt pretty pathetic. 

 

When he thought that it was over and Tony was starting to leave, Peter’s spider sense went off. It never went off for no reason but it wasn’t violent enough for immediate action. It just made him generally uneasy. Like he was being watched. He did the stupid thing and ignored it. He attributed it to the premunition of Flash approaching them. His spider-sense usually didn’t go off just when Flash was walking to him. He was just a little on edge. 

 

“Hey Penis!” Flash shouted, obviously not seeing Tony only a dozen feet away. Harley managed to look less tired and more grumpy when Flash walked up to them. 

 

“Flash I don’t want to do this right now…” Peter muttered as he instinctively backed away. It wasn’t that he was afraid of Flash, it was just instinct after being beaten up for years. He was more afraid of falling buildings than a kid that was shorter and more aggressive than him. 

 

“Well that’s too fucking bad isn’t it! One of you little shits ratted me out so I have detention for the rest of the month!” Flash growled. This was when Tony heard and started walking calmly back as if he was waiting for the situation to escalate enough for him to be allowed to punch a child. 

 

More people entered and more teenagers realized that Tony Fucking Stark was just chilling in a STEM high school. A few confident students walked up to him and he switched to the whole charming public persona thing. Tony did seem to keep a discreet eye on Peter though. 

 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about…” Peter said carefully. He knew that he and Harley avoided telling anyone and he really doubted that MJ had, Peter didn’t think she cared enough or that she was aware that no action was likely to be done. Ned probably didn’t tell as this has already happened so much that he knew that no one would listen or do anything about it. 

 

“Don’t act stupid Parker, one of the losers in your group got the idiots that run this place to believe you this time.” Flash hissed furiously. 

 

“Actually I did.” Suddenly, behind Peter, Tony snuck up on them and rested his elbow on Peters shoulder. He jumped a little. Jesus Christ, the guy was like fifty and he was still somehow able to sneak up on Spider-Man. When Tony came into view, Flash froze and could barely talk for a full thirty seconds. 

 

Peter noticed Tony and Harley struggling not to smirk in satisfaction. But Peter’s spider-sense was still making him uneasy. Something bad was going to happen. Peter fingered the folded web-shooters in his jean pockets in an attempt to ease his anxieties. No one seemed to notice his distress so he hoped that he was just over reacting over nothing. 

 

“Y-you’re… You’re Tony Stark.” Flash managed to stutter out in his shock. 

 

“Yeah, nice observation short stuff.” Tony raised his eyebrows. “I am a lot of things and that is definitely one of them.” 

 

“I- uh-I-” Flash tried to speak before Peter’s spider-sense started to peak.

 

“Tony, something’s wrong…” Peter muttered before a bit of strange movement caught his eye. It would’ve easily been mistaken for a fly. It was tiny and almost metallic black. But something about it was off. It was either it’s non-erratic flying or it’s complete lack of wings or legs. Either way, it was not a fly and it was setting off Peter’s spider-sense like crazy. 

 

The bug landed on the ceiling where Peter noticed more of them start to configure. They were too small for anyone besides him to see and he didn’t even know what they were. They may not even be dangerous. They could just be weird cameras or drones.

 

Peter realized that he wouldn’t be that lucky when his enhanced hearing caught steady beeping coming from the bugs. In the movies that means they were going to blow up. Apparently, that’s what it meant in real life too. Peter took a fraction of a second to guess where the safest places would be then he realized that the tiny bombs were placed very specifically in the most important parts of the buildings structure. They were trying to bring the roof down completely. 

 

Peter was glad that they were early enough for there not to be too many people at the school in the first place. Not just because of the imminent destruction but also because it was going to be hard to keep a secret identity. 

 

The image of the building collapsing on them made Peter’s anxiety appear, One time was enough and now it was almost certainly going to happen again. Oh joy. For a moment Peter found it hard to breathe, A split second of his ribs being crushed and the phantom weight of a dozen tons of concrete piled up on his back. Peter motionlessly shook off the feeling. He didn’t have time to have a panic attack. 

 

“Kid… You okay?” Peter was ripped out of his thoughts as Tony noticed him space out. Harley and Flash were staring at him weirdly while Tony seemed to have an idea about what was up. Tony was the only one who knew about the whole spider thing. Not everything though. He hasn’t had the chance to explain everything or even find out for himself. 

 

“Uh, did you bring one of your suits?” Peter asked, hoping that the distant beeping of the tiny bombs would refrain from speeding up. 

 

“I’m not going to bring a fully weaponized suit to visit a school… Why, what’s wrong.” Tony calmly demanded while reaching towards his watch that if Peter remembered correctly, turned into a simple iron man gauntlet. 

 

“They’re going to try to bring the roof down…” Peter muttered as he noticed the pulsing noise speed up. They had seconds, if that. He didn’t have time to evacuate or warn anyone. So he did the best thing that he could think of. He yelled. 

 

“HOLY FUCK THE CEILING IS FALLING!” He managed to scream immediately before the bombs went off. The blasts weren’t actually that impressive but it was easily going to bring the building down. 

 

Tony pulled Harley and Flash to the floor as Peter slapped the web-shooters onto his wrists at the speed of light. A large chunk of concrete ceiling fell in slow motion at the small group and Harley was able to find the time to scream Peter’s name before he thought they would be squished. 

 

Fortunately that didn’t happen. Peter managed to catch the debris and he only fell to one knee from the impact. There was a moment of stunned silence while Peter got back up on his feet and carefully placed the concrete away from them instead of taking the dramatic route and using the piece of ceiling as a frisbee. 

 

“Are you guys okay?” Peter broke the silence and Tony was the first one to recover. 

 

“We aren’t the ones who took the full force of the second floor kid. Are you okay?” His mentor asked while hiding his own marveling. The kid didn’t look even remotely hurt from the impact. Tony knew he was strong but holy shit…

 

“I’ve had worse.” Peter said carefully. Tony immediately knew that he was trying to hide something. Not because he was particularly good at identifying lies, but mostly because Peter was pretty shit at telling them.

 

“What the fuck Pete.” Harley spoke up. Flash seemed to agree. 

 

“Not everyone can meet Tony Stark when he fakes his death and sneaks into your garage.” Peter sighed. “You have to be kinda special. My special thing just happened to be superpowers and non-violent tendencies.” He shrugged. 

 

“You- You’re-” Flash stuttered, which was unusual for him. But being in a collapsing building, pissing off a superhero and finding out the main kid you bully is also a superhero was pretty unusual for him too.

 

“I’m Spider-Man.” Peter finished for him. “Surprise… I think there are more important things than my identity though. I mean someone just deliberately tried to murder us.”

 

“Yeah good point kid, was there anyone else in the foyer? It looks like this is where all of the explosions were… Not even the main office looks damaged.” Tony looked around. 

 

“It was pretty empty…” Peter began to check under the biggest chucks of ceiling for anyone but was relieved to not find any bodies. 

“Are we not going to talk about what the hell just happened…” Harley took Tony’s hand before the billionaire helped him and Flash up to their feet. 

 

“Nope. Superhero karma. We could totally get attacked again as we seem to be in one piece.” Peter shrugged. “I’m guessing Friday already called the police?” 

 

“Let me check, probably. It’s too bad my latest suit was in the car…” Tony sighed and put on a pair of glasses with the AI casually featured. “Hey Fri, did you call emergency services?”

 

“Of course. The authorities were notified as soon as the explosion went off.” Peter heard the quiet voice of the AI going into Tony’s ear. 

 

“Good, you see any heat signatures in the debris?” Tony asked Friday while Flash sat on the chunk of concrete that had almost fallen on him. Harley walked up to Peter who was checking for trapped kids a few dozen feet away. 

 

“So… Someone needs to stand up for Spider-Man huh.” Harley leaned on the chunk of concrete that Peter was lifting up. 

 

“Well, I’m glad that it’s you. And Tony, and MJ, and Ned…” Peter chuckled. “What can I say, I’m a bit of a wuss. Even though I can bench press the Hulk with one hand, I seem to attract people who feel the need to protect me.” Peter was fully aware and usually enjoyed it when people cared enough to get protective of him. But it could get annoying as he felt like they didn’t think that he could take care of himself. 

 

“That’s because you look pathetic and have puppy eyes. When you look sad, the world will want to hug you.” Harley snorted. “I guess that’s why you have a mask, you are as non-threatening as it gets.” 

 

“I do not!” Peter dropped the slab of ceiling which made Harley tumble a little bit. The blonde asshole still grinned. 

 

“Only Tony can get away with being that short. He has armor that can make him as tall as he wants and he wears lifts on the daily.” Harley grinned as Tony heard his name. 

 

“You take that back you monster! I am not as short as the Spiderling!” Tony yelled from his position. 

 

“You’re only one inch taller than me!” Peter shouted exasperatedly. “Are we really doing this now?” 

 

“Isn’t the subject of height a normal family argument?” Harley genuinely asked. Both Tony and Peter stopped what they were doing and shrugged. None of them had much experience with family stuff. Or at least, normal family stuff.

 

This was when paramedics arrived and Flash’s mother got out of her car and launched herself at her son. Policemen walked up to Tony as Harley and Peter were rushed to an ambulance to check if they were okay. Peter was a little bruised on his back but he was fine. Harley just seemed shaken up so they gave him one of those panic blankets. 

 

“Do either of you have parents that we need to notify?” A policeman asked both of the teenagers who both pointed at Tony without hesitation. 

 

“We might need to call Pepper though.” Harley shrugged casually. Thankfully the police guy just went up to the billionaire instead of immediately doubting their situation. It took about fifteen minutes for the school staff to be saved from the wreckage, most of them were stuck in their rooms or offices and none of them were severely hurt. There was an English teacher with a broken arm though and Peter felt bad for her. 

 

“I’ll do it, Tony looks busy…” Peter looked at his new dad and shrugged before taking out his remarkably intact phone. He saw that Pepper had already tried to call but his phone was on silent. He didn’t hesitate to call her back. She was probably worried out of her mind. 

 

“Oh my god Peter, Are you guys okay? Friday told me what happened but I haven’t been able to get a hold of Tony yet.” Pepper answered urgently. 

 

“I promise we’re okay, Tony is just busy dealing with the police. I think Friday is just offline or Tony’s glasses broke.” Peter reassured her. “I guess we get to miss school huh…” 

 

“Jesus Christ now there are three boys ready to give me a heart attack. Can you give the phone to Tony when he’s not busy?” She sounded anxious and laughed nervously.

 

“We’ll make it up to you I promise. And I’ll try, but it could either take ten seconds or ten hours depending on Tony’s patience.” Peter said gently like he was trying to calm her down long distance. 

 

“I bet ten seconds. He’ll want to get back to you two as soon as possible. Are you guys hurt at all? Even if it’s just a scratch I want to know.” She ordered. 

 

“We’re fine, I caught the debris before it could squash us. Bruising will heal up in a few hours. I don’t think anyone got too seriously injured.” Peter started to think about the situation. The bombs could’ve been after Tony, then it would make sense for the people behind it not factoring in Peter’s super-strength, the bombs were mobile so they could’ve been following them for a while… On the other hand they would’ve been more effective if they had just gotten closer to the heroes. But making the ceiling fall was deliberate so it was probably someone going after Peter and not doing very well. 

 

“I want to hear his voice… just please. Take the phone to him for a second.” Pepper said quietly. 

 

“No problem. I’ll see if I can pull him away for a second.” Peter promised as he strolled over to Tony and prepared to be interrogated in his place. He threaded in between a handful of police who told him to be careful and he got close enough to hand Tony the phone. 

 

“Tony, It’s Pepper.” Peter hissed as he passed his phone to his father. 

 

“Jesus, Sorry boys, gotta console the girlfriend, you know? Hey Honey...” Tony said sweetly into the receiver of the cell phone. Peter decided to tune out Pepper’s relieved yelling. 

 

“Kid, can you tell us what happened?” One of the cops approached him. 

 

“Yeah, so We just got out of the main office so that Tony could finalize our documents, and these little bug things were on the ceiling which I thought was weird. They were black and super metallic and they flew but had no wings. They must’ve had some sort of miniaturized hover technology and they placed themselves at the strongest points of the building to bring it down.” Peter stated calmly. 

 

“So they were probably the work of some villain with a personal agenda with Mr. Stark over there.” The cop motioned toward Tony who was talking in a very animated way to his worried fiance. 

 

“That would make sense.” Peter shrugged and kept his mouth shut over suspecting it being his fault. Someone was after Spider-Man and they knew who he was. Tony being there was just an extra bonus. Probably. 

 

“How did you manage to avoid the rubble completely?” Peter froze. He recovered as quickly as he could as he answered. 

 

“I don’t know, we were lucky I guess.” He shrugged and glanced over at Harley. He gave his brother a look that tried to convey ‘save me’ and it seemed to work. Harley rolled his eyes and walked over. 

 

“A building just dropped on us. We are traumatized.” Harley grabbed Peters shirt and dragged him away. Well, that was one way to get him out of the situation. 

 

“Whatever…” The policeman reminded Peter why he was still a vigilante. New York just didn’t have people who gave a shit. 

 

“Children of mine!” Tony yelled with his hand on the phone receiver.”We’re going home to recover from trauma, do you guys want Pizza or Chinese takeout for lunch?” 

 

This was when Peter realized how much time had past. They had literally just chilled there for hours while Tony had been talking to the police and Pepper. 

 

“I don’t care as long as there is a lot of it. Trauma makes me hungry.” Harley said while Peter nodded. He had a feeling that he would be grilled during lunch anyway. He did just accidentally reveal his whole superhero thing. 

 

Hopefully this time, they won’t be followed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! I hopped you like this chapter! Remember, comments = currency so if you liked my stuff, tell me. I would really appreciate it. On another note, would you guys read a biological irondad fic with Ben and May being like his nanny and butler (Kinda, I just don't want to erase them but I want Irondad to be the main thing you know?) I don't know if I should be starting anew fic while I'm still constantly updating two at a time. IDK, It was just an idea that I don't think anyone has really explored yet. Soon I'll have my own laptop so it will be a whole lot easier to update so I could probably be able to keep up. Hopefully. 
> 
> Anyway I love you all and I hope that you have a great day! Follow my tumblr (GayGemGrump) for more irondad content!


	5. Calm in the Eye of the Storm

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Decisions are made before the world spirals out of control.

“So how long can you just... chill up there.” Harley was staring at Peter who was sitting upside down on the ceiling of the workshop. They had all been casually working on whatever they could think of just to pass time now that school was on hold. 

 

“I don’t know. I’ve slept on the ceiling before. Being upside down actually helps me focus.” He shrugged and webbed himself a tool from Tony’s main workstation. He jammed it into the tiny device he was making. He didn’t tell Tony or Harley that it was going to be an arc reactor powered lightsaber. He was slightly embarrassed by his obsession with the Star Wars franchise so he toned it down so that his new family wouldn’t think less of him. 

 

“Can you stick to anything?” Harley said as he lazily ate a slice of pizza. That was what happened when Pepper wasn’t around to monitor their eating. Tony just ordered them too many pizzas and told them to go wild. They usually did. 

 

“Anything solid. I think I can stick to semi-solids… Unless you want to make a jello building then I’m not sure if we’ll find out any time soon.” Peter shrugged and lowered himself down on a web to grab his fifteenth slice of pizza. He wasn’t a heathen. He was unsure if his web-fluid was toxic or not and he wasn’t going to try it out by eating it off of a slice of meat-lovers. If it didn’t kill him it would definitely be pretty nasty. 

 

“How though.” Harley asked as he looked up at his brother weirdly. Peter probably looked kinda silly just upside down on a tall ceiling. 

 

“I can manipulate my atomic electromagnetism. I don’t have little hairs like real spiders. That would be fucking disgusting. I can stick through thin fabric like my suit. It wouldn’t work if it was too much thicker than spandex. That’s why I show off my ass, not because it’s nice, but because thick fabric restrains my whole sticking ability. And sometimes all of my limbs have to be moving while my butt does the sticking.” Peter answered through a few bites of food. 

 

“Has that ever happened?” Harley doubted dramatically.

 

“Yeah, I had to kick a guy off of me while using my webs at the same time and I didn’t want to be launched in the air.” Peter said completely seriously. “What are you working on?” 

 

“Oh, Tony let me use one of his old models of the suit. I’m trying to condense a fully formed iron man gauntlet into something pocket sized. For emergencies you know? It turns out that Tony already has ultra miniature arc reactor plans so all I have to do is the whole automated metal bit. At least in a way that won’t accidentally rip my fingers off.” Harley said casually. 

 

“That’s always a good goal to have. Wait… Spiders can regrow limbs right? Do you think I can do that?” 

 

“You are not going to intentionally injure yourself, Jesus Christ…” Tony ordered after focusing on jamming to his own music and playing with some prototype nanites. 

 

“It was just theoretical!” Peter defended. “I wasn’t actually going to cut any of my limbs off!” 

 

“Yeah, it would be a toe at most.” Harley added helpfully. “You don’t need all of those right?” 

 

“Yes you do, don’t hurt yourself for the sake of an experiment.” Tony squinted his eyes as if he didn’t know that his kids were joking. He just wanted to make sure. 

 

“Okay fine, I’ll probably lose a limb on patrol someday.” Peter shrugged. “Hey Tony? Are you gonna make an announcement, you know, about the adoption?” 

 

“That’s probably a good idea, I am a bit of a public figure and people will be wondering why I’m hanging out with a couple of teenagers so much. But if you want to keep it quiet then I won’t say anything. You can’t exactly back away after deciding to be in the forefront of the media.” Tony reasoned. 

 

“I don’t think it’s that bad… I mean it’s not like I’ve never had bad press.” Peter smiled, “There’s this newspaper, they hate Spider-Man. But, here’s the catch, no one reads newspapers and they can’t get a picture of me to save their life. I totally thought about staging pictures to sell to them but I haven’t had a good camera in ages.” Peter typed on his holoscreen and swiped on it, sending a picture of the newspaper to Harley and Tony. 

 

Harley immediately barked out a laugh and Tony looked mildly offended for Peter. He appreciated it. At first when he saw the anti-spiderman crap, he felt horrible but after some thought, he realized that they were hilariously bad. It was like watching Alex Jones, passionate about something that makes no sense and has no proof. 

 

“Oh my god, look, you're a menace now! ‘Evil mean spider-menace disrespecting the elderly!’ You know, by walking them across the street. How shameful.” Harley giggled. 

 

“My favorite one is when they claim that I’m part of a Nazi terrorist organization. I mean, do I look like Wanda Maximoff?” Peter smiled. This comment made Tony snort even though it was about one of his former teammates. “Wow, are you salty Mr. Stark?” 

 

“I just got you to stop calling me that you little asshole. Also I am pretty salty. I should be too old to be salty but no…” Tony sighed loudly. 

 

“I’m surprised that you even know what that term is.” Harley grinned.

 

“I’m down with the kids.” Tony grumbled. “ I know the memes…” Both Peter and Harley burst out laughing. “Well I have to, right! I’m trying to parent a couple of teenagers!” He defended. “I don’t want to be the old fart parent that doesn’t know what an internet is!” Peter actually fell from the ceiling as he was laughing so hard. He landed unsteadily on his feet then had to use a desk for support while he laughed his lungs out. Harley was weezing by the time he could stop laughing. 

 

“Too late…” Harley tried to catch his breath. “How the hell do you find time to look at memes?”

 

“What do you think I do during all those avenger meetings kid. Come on, you think I need that UN shit repeated to me a thousand times.” Tony rolled his eyes. “Okay it wasn’t all memes but I finished monument valley in one afternoon.” 

 

“That’s not that impressive, but why would you need to go to those avengers meetings anyway? I mean there aren’t very many avengers left. Most of them abandoned you because, what, rules are for pussies?” Harley looked a little bit annoyed when talking about the ex-avengers. Peter agreed but slightly less passionately. What team cap did was super uncool, at least from what Peter knew anyway.

 

“Well, somehow I have to find them and at least get them to a judge. Or find a way to pardon them because I can’t be earths only defender. The next worldwide disaster could happen and I’d rather have more expendable team members. The UN thinks they’re dangerous and they can’t be running around doing whatever they want.” Tony explained dismissively. 

 

“Yeah, no shit. Mr. Rogers is destructive as hell. Remember when he revealed the entirety of a secret agency without giving a heads up to the agents on the field in direct danger?” Harley pursed his lips. 

 

“He didn’t think that through did he…” Peter muttered as he climbed up on a table, completely unlike a normal human. 

 

“Hopefully you guys don’t hate him that much because the best I can do for our situation is bring them back under house arrest here at the compound.” Both of the teenagers froze and looked at their father. 

 

“Uh, what? Even after all of that you’re letting them come back?” Harley shouted. 

 

“I’ve been talking to King T’Challa as they set up home base in Wakanda and we’re trying to work something out. I’m really trying to work with the accords so that there will be comfortable with them enough…” Tony continued. 

 

“You really shouldn’t have to change the law to make them comfortable. The law is for the safety of all of the people who were previously unheard. The avengers needed some sort of oversight. You can’t just go to other countries and kill people with the story of trying to stop a terrorist. And none of them admitted to doing anything wrong. They left all of that to you even though you weren’t even part of it. I say they don’t deserve your help.” Harley ranted. Ever since he had met Tony he had kept up pretty intensely on everything to do with him and the avengers. He was a little frustrated. 

 

“Yeah he dropped a plane platform on me before he knew if I could handle it… I mean we were fighting but I could’ve become a spider pancake. His team seemed a little more willing to hurt our team when I was literally just there to tie them up.” Peter shrugged. He was fairly informed about everything and was completely steadfast in his views.

 

Superheroes should be more responsible than anyone else. They had more arguably more power than any world leader and they couldn’t just do whatever they wanted. As someone raised to value responsibility above practically all else, he knew how important it was to account for your actions. Especially when you have great power. Super or not. 

 

“Yeah, well, I’m not happy about it either. But we don’t have much of a choice. If something really bad happens… we need to be ready and if that means bringing them back, then fine. It’s better than having nothing.” Tony sighed, struggling to hide how uncomfortable he was about the subject. Did he want Steve back? No. He never wanted to see that asshole again. But if there was something coming, he would die alone. He didn’t have much of a choice. 

 

“I don’t see why we can’t just make a new team. I seriously doubt that I’m the only teenage superhero. Hell, Harley could probably pull off being a direct line of succession for Iron Man. Iron Boy… Iron-ling…” Peter suggested.

 

“Yeah no, Remember when I said expendable? That’s what you guys aren’t. No major superheroing until you get out of collage. That’s a rule in this house.” Tony looked up to silently inform Friday. 

 

“Would you like me to inform Ms.Boss about the new family rule?” The AI echoed from the ceiling. 

 

“Yes. And tell her that I love her.” Tony said casually while Harley and Peter made gagging noises and stuck out their tongues respectively. 

 

“Okay let’s not go down that road. She’s not even here... “ Harley rushed. “Hey, we didn’t elaborate on that whole publicising the adoption thing. Are we actually going to do that?” 

 

“Do you want to?” Tony sounded suspicious. 

 

“It’s going to be hard to hide it if we go outside and the school already knows. It could already be leaked. It would be easiest to take control of it yourself.” Harley shrugged. Peter wasn’t completely sure about what he wanted. Sure, he didn’t want to hide anything but he also was kind of afraid of publicity as Peter and not just as Spider-Man. He knew the public would find out either way and he would rather avoid the whole misunderstanding phase. 

 

“You’re right, how about you Peter?” Tony turned to his Spider son. 

 

“I think… I’m not sure. I’m not a public person but I’d rather have that than trying to hide something that big. I’ll have to tell Ned and MJ first though. I think I already kept May’s.. Uh death from them for too long… I don’t want them finding out through the trending tag on twitter.” Peter shrugged. 

 

“You didn’t even tell them about your aunts death?” Harley said, dumbfounded. 

 

“In my defence, I was still in denial. And I tend to internalize my problems until I explode. I don’t exactly have healthy coping mechanisms.” 

 

“You shouldn’t wait any longer anyway. Just call them in a minute. I can set up a press conference to reveal my new babies to the world. Do you guys want to do it today or tomorrow?” Tony asked. 

 

“That fast? Damn… uh… the sooner the better I guess. Do I have to wear something nice?” Peter shuttered. He didn’t want to confront everything that soon. But he knew that he had to. It was one of those need-to-know kinds of things. 

 

“Yeah but don’t worry. I’ve got that taken care of. Or I guess Pepper does. She has a better sense of style than I do and she insisted we go a little crazy on the clothes.”

 

“So it was Pepper that got us all matching iron man pajama pants?” Harley deadpanned. 

 

“I think she has them too. Family has to match I guess. Is that a thing? I don’t know.” Tony didn’t look remotely surprised at his fiance's antics. “Anyway, tonight then? We still have a few hours to get ready.” He looked at his watch. He had called his fair share of press conferences without much of a heads up. Besides, by now everyone should know about the attack at the school so he would need to address that as well.

 

“Sure whatever. I’ll need to take a shower and Pete has to tell his friends. Cool? Cool. Bye.” Harley got up from his seat and left the lab without another word. 

 

“Great…” Peter groaned. “I’m just going to skype them at the same time... I do not want to have the same conversation twice. I’ll tell Friday when I’m done.” Peter narated as he left the workshop and waved goodbye to Tony. 

 

“Hey Fri? You know what to do.” Tony prepared for his own call.

 

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

“So uh, I haven’t been completely honest with either of you. And before you say anything, It’s not because I don’t trust you or anything that you guys couldn’t helped.” Peter sat in his room in the Iron Suite of the avengers compound. It had the most extra rooms even from the beginning. Which was pretty convenient. 

 

“Spit it out dork.” MJ said. She looked like she didn’t think that it was as major as it was and Peter appreciated the casualness. 

 

“Okay, a little over a month ago, my Aunt May died.” Peter could practically feel the air get awkward through his laptops monitor. He continued before his friends could interrupt. “I don’t have any family left so I went into foster care for a while. I kept running away though. That’s why I looked like garbage all month, Not just physically but also emotionally.” He joked as it was his ‘uncomfortable’ coping mechanism. 

 

“Oh my god, Peter I’m so sorry…” Ned started. He was one of the only people who understood. At least the whole coping thing. Ned had been there for him when Ben died and he knew that Peter’s solution to the problem was to internalize the fuck out of it. MJ looked a little uncomfortable as she was fully aware of how pushy she had been the past month. Peter knew that it was just her way of caring but also seeming detached. 

 

“I know, I’m dealing with it but that’s not all. You know Harley? I actually met him through the foster system. His dad left him early on and his mother died a few years ago. That doesn’t matter, anyway, he was my foster brother. Now he’s my adopted brother. About a week ago, we got adopted.” Peter debated on whether to keep them in the dark about the whole ‘Iron Man is my dad’ thing. 

 

“Whoa okay, let me get this straight, you got double orphaned and didn’t tell either of us?” MJ sounded respectfully sad but like she was desperately trying not to be even more depressing. 

 

“Yeah, that’s it. But I swear it’s not you guys. It just took me too long to accept it myself. Anyway, I had to tell you before I’m on the news in a few hours. I actually have to go get ready for that.” Peter prepared to end the call before Neds eyes lit up in realization. 

 

“Wait… DID MR. ST-” Peter interrupted him before his friend could spoil anything.

 

“Spoilers dude. I’ll text both of you soon.” He grinned and shut his computer to end the call. “Uh Karen? I need a tie tying tutorial…” He requested his personal AI. He had gotten attached to his suits AI so instead of Friday, Karen was embedded in his room. 

 

“I could just ask boss. He just got off of the phone. Would you like me to request his assistance or see you struggle with it for twenty minutes?” Karen replied in her sweet teasing tone. 

 

“Fine… in a minute though, I’ll save that for last.” 

 

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

Peter was a little nervous. Maybe more than a little as he was freaking out. He fidgeted with his little spider cufflinks that Tony thought would be funny. He had to admit that the little spiders were cute. But he could imagine the blurry pictures on a fake news site with a caption of ‘Starks son is Spider-Man?’ or something just as obnoxious. Even though it was true, it would be weird to see it. It was exciting in a sense, he had never been part of a conspiracy theory. 

 

Tony had helped him with a simple glossy red tie and Harley dealt with a flashy gold one. Neither of them were used to dressing so fancy but Peter had to admit that it was the most stylish he had ever felt. He would have to remember to thank Pepper when he sees her next. He kind of felt like he was in a magazine or on the red carpet. He had never had a stronger urge to take pictures of himself. 

 

He may feel cool but he also felt a whole lot of anxiety. Tony had promised that all he had to do was stand there when the billionaire gave the announcement and that they didn’t have to answer any questions if they didn’t want to. 

 

Peter wasn’t worried about any of that though. He was worried about all of the flashing lights and yelling. As a sense enhanced person, that was going to be the worst part. He just had to get through it without going into sensory overload. Easy peasy. He went through multiple fire drills so it should be fine right? He was probably just worrying too much. If the lights got too much he could just ask Tony if he could use his sunglasses. 

 

“You kids ready?” Tony looked over at them as a woman was making him look less sleep deprived with makeup. Peter and Harley had the same treatment only minutes before and they couldn’t wait until it was all over. Again, Peter was sensitive and makeup of any kind felt extra weird. He kept wanting to rub his eye but he knew that the concealer would rub off and he had to just endure. 

 

“Is it too cliche to say, as ready as I’ll ever be?” Harley straightened up and messed with his tie a little more than normal. The asshole was just better at hiding his nervousness than Peter was but he knew that Harley was just as uncomfortable. 

 

“A little but it isn’t inaccurate. Remember, It’s going to be over soon and if you don’t want to answer a question, you can just give me a look and I’ll answer for you. How does that sound?” Tony was confident enough that some of his natural chill was picked up subconsciously by his kids. “Just remember that breathing is good for you. Air is a nice resources. Use it all you want.”

 

“Boss, It’s time.” Happy said through a slightly opened door that led to all of the chaos. Peter swore that he could see Colonel Rhodes on the platform beyond. Tony nodded and fixed Harley’s hair before showtime. They only had another second to prepare, and it went by too fast. Then they were out in the eyes of the world and everyone was watching. He really hoped that he wouldn’t regret this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Early update and expect more. I'm on fall break so I have plenty of time to write. As usual, comments are my only source of income and I would love to hear from you. I have tumblr blog specifically for writing (GayGrumpWrites) and you can check out my normal blog (GayGemGrump) if you want. I am also debating a name change so be aware of that in the future. Anyway, expect frequent updates for the next week. Which is good because I have been planning this fic and 'adventures through time and space' a little bit more than I have been able to keep up with. Planning wise I am about two months ahead. Now I have plenty of time to actually write so be prepared for that. 
> 
> Anyway I love you all and I can't wait to update more!


	6. Differing Worldview

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Reactions and outcomes of the big announcement.

-Steve Rogers- Golden City- Wakanda- 22:00-

Steve had not been sure what to expect with Tony’s sudden press conference. Steve and his avengers had just got back to Wakanda to hide out for a little while longer. Also to check on Bucky. That was an important part. They were only just starting his treatment and Steve was confident that the old Bucky would be back in no time. 

 

After being on the run, Wakanda felt safe. The rest of the world hated them and Steve couldn't understand why. It was probably the modern Nazi’s fault. 

 

Steve had been notified about some press thing that Tony was doing and he was immediately curious about what was going to be said. Tony was known for doing whatever the hell he wanted, whenever the hell he wanted. This announcement didn’t have anything to do with SI as Pepper would’ve been the one to take charge. It was either personal or ‘Avengers business.’ Which didn’t make sense as Steve had taken all of the present original avengers and most of the recruits. 

 

Colonel Rhodes was arguably out of commission and that just left Tony and Vision. It would make sense that the avengers would be looking for members. Steve didn’t know about many other super-people but he remembered the Spider-kid that Tony had foolishly brought to the airport fight. Who brings a kid to a fight? At least Wanda was a few years older. 

 

“Ladies and Gentlemen, You are in for a treat today. I know everyone is disappointed with the majority of the avengers deciding to become criminals and I am feeling the same to a point. So we’re not going to focus on that. This is a purely personal announcement that is not meant to be some publicity stunt. At the most this is a request for privacy.” Tony’s face appeared on the TV.

 

“Just get on with it Tony.” Steve rolled his eyes as he adjusted his position on his seat. He was given a private suite and it usually made him feel lonely. He usually stayed in the public area with the rest of his avengers. He only endured solitude to watch Tony’s live press conference.

 

“About a week ago I made a large change in my life and I have decided to share it publicly.” Tony motioned to his side when the camera zoomed out and showed a couple of teenagers. “With the permission of my fiance, I have adopted two kids.” If Steve had been drinking, he would’ve spat it out in shock. Tony Stark? A father? Those two concepts did not belong in the same sentence. Tony couldn’t stop being an asshole to people and Steve couldn’t imagine Tony dealing with children. He felt bad for the teenagers obviously. 

 

“This is Peter and Harley.” Tony motioned to the shorter one first then the taller, blond one. The odd thing was, the teenagers would have easily been confused with being Tony and Peppers biological children. Harley had Pepper’s blue eyes and off-blond hair, and Peter had Tony’s brown eyes and matching hair. If Tony hadn’t mentioned the whole adoption thing, Steve would be wondering how the hell Tony had hidden secret kids with Pepper all this time. 

 

“They are probably the most intelligent people I have ever met regardless of their age and I have never been more genuinely happy about a decision in my entire life. Don’t tell the CEO of my company.” Tony smiled before telling the audience that they can ask questions. 

 

There were questions to the kids how they met Tony, one said that he had been an intern and that when his aunt died, Tony had been the adult that he trusted most at the time, the other kid shrugged and said that he met Tony during the mandarin thing when everyone thought he was dead. 

 

There were other questions about the kids and what Pepper thought of them, but Steve’s mind was swimming. He turned off the TV before the conference even finished.

 

“Oh, Tony, What have you done…” 

 

-Natasha Romanov- Buenos Aires- Argentina- 5:00- 

 

Natasha had caught the press conference by accident. She had been in the middle of a quick meal at her temporary apartment with the television on as background noise when it came on. It was quickly translated into spanish but Nat didn’t have a problem with the language barrier. Spanish was one of the many languages that she had learned over the years. 

 

The last time she had seen Tony was before she betrayed him in the airport battle. He had looked worn from stress that the UN had put on him. It was only multiplied by Roger’s need to be in charge. Natasha had seen both sides of the coin and she knew why the common people would want them to have their own set of rules and she knew why Steve didn’t trust the UN. She got it. She understood why it was such a blow to Tony when they all left him to deal with the fallout alone. 

 

She had seen the man broken the months after the civil war on TV and undercover. This was not that man. His press smile blended into his real smile and he was genuinely in a better mental place than she had ever seen him. It gave her the idea that the avengers had been poisoning him as much as the Palladium had. Without the Avengers, Tony looked more healthy and happy than she had ever seen him. 

 

She ignored his buildup and disclaimer to his announcement and was actually surprised by his actual reveal. After a moment of thought, his decision of adopting teenagers didn’t sound so outlandish. 

 

Over the years, Nat had noticed that Tony wanted peace more than anything. He had mentioned that he was thinking of doing a hawkeye and buying a farm. Tony wanted the domestic life with his girlfriend. But she was a CEO of his huge tech company and he was a superhero. One of the closest things that they could do to achieve the family that he so wanted was to make one.

 

To Natasha, it made sense. Until she heard the brown haired boys voice. She had heard that voice before. She knew instantly that the shorter teenager was Spider-Man and that this could be more than a personal choice. Natasha thought about the upcoming avenger and it seemed reasonable that Tony would want the kid close enough to train and properly mentor. 

 

The other kid could either be a decoy or a different upcoming hero that she had not known about. It took Tony ten years to get engaged to the girl he had been dating so something this sudden did not come out of nowhere. There must be something that she was not getting. Instead of focusing on the Starks, she tapped her communicator. She was going home sooner than she had thought. 

 

-T’Challa Udaku- Golden City- Wakanda- 23:00-

 

After days of nonstop ruling and tiring governmental duties, T’Challa finally got a break. At least until morning. He checked the world news to see if a nuclear war had broken out yet. Thankfully that day there wasn’t some school shooting or terrorist attack. What he read was much more unusual. 

 

There were numerous articles about Tony Stark and his… sons? It was a mild shock to T’Challa but he didn’t know Mr. Stark that well in the first place. Who was he to judge. He read the articles purely out of interest on the subject. 

 

Nothing was too bad, there were concerns about Tony’s life as a superhero being dangerous for minors which T’Challa rolled his eyes at. Both of the teenagers were around Shuri’s age and she was just fine. From what he had read, both of the boys were genius levels of smart and one of them was destined to replace Iron Man someday. 

 

T’Challa wasn’t sure if he wanted to introduce the boys to his sister. He imagined that they would take over the world over a single afternoon. He wasn’t sure if he would mind. Maybe when the chaos was over, he would do it. But he was currently trying to rule a country and get a bunch of enhanced terrorists pardons into the US. Current existence was too chaotic to care about Tony Stark’s private life.

 

T’Challa simply did not care. 

 

-James Rhodes- Upstate- New York- 16:00-

 

Rhodey knew about Tony’s announcement approximately ten minutes before the press conference started. He was sure that if he would’ve been standing when he found out because he would’ve needed help getting back up. 

 

He had insisted that he was well enough to be there because he was excited. He wanted to meet the kids that softened his best friend enough to accept a family again. Not many people could charm Tony Stark. Or endure him constantly. He hadn’t heard much about them but he was definitely going to have the uncle talk with Tony. 

 

He didn’t waste a moment to think about what was best for the kids because he already knew that when Tony cared about someone or something, he got very passionate about it. He was only worried that the teens would be too spoiled because Tony was never taught how to show affection. He just gave people things to show that he appreciated them. He was taught that money helped everything. 

 

Seeing his nephews for the first time in front of an audience kept him from talking to them for a while. So that was annoying. But watching the Stark’s was funny. Tony was wearing his lifts so that he would tower over his smaller than average children, and the shortest one kept straightening his back to seem taller. The blond one kept whispering to the other one and making him almost laugh. Every once in a while, Rhodey would hear a soft snort of someone trying to hide their laughter.

 

Needless to say, Colonel Rhodes liked them before he got the chance to even talk to them. He did get to talk to them eventually. After the press conference, after pictures and getting back to privacy, Rhodey was finally able to greet the Starklings. 

 

“Tones, I’m surprised you kept them from me for a week.” Rhodes maneuvered to his friend with his crutches.

 

“If you didn’t just come from your mom’s in Philadelphia, you would’ve found out in five minutes. You were too busy to keep your eye on me.” Tony shrugged. 

 

“-Harley, I swear to god, you can’t make me laugh on live TV.” Peter whined to his brother. “This was supposed to be serious you whore.” He gently shoved Harley to the side. Harley let out the laugh he had been holding back for at least half of an hour. 

 

“You should be thanking me, you were too busy trying not to laugh to throw up from being anxious you slut.” Harley shoved back. 

 

“I don’t know which is worse.” Peter made a face. 

 

“My spawn! Come here, I want you guys to meet Rhodey!” Tony interrupted his son’s and their unheated argument. They turned towards them and Peter’s eyes slightly widened. He obviously thought pretty highly of Colonel Rhodes. Rhodes wasn’t used to the hero worship thing but he felt strangely proud of still being considered a hero by someone. After the whole paralysis thing, he felt useless and unworthy of the title. 

 

“Hey, you’re Iron Patriot right?” Harley rested his elbow on Peter’s shoulder much to his new armrests displeasure.

 

“Well, it’s War Machine now.” Rhodey glanced at Tony who looked like he was having violent deja vu. 

 

“Nah, Iron Patriot sounds cooler but in hindsight being Iron Man painted like Captain America would not be a good idea.” Harley unbuttoned the top button of his shirt so that he could actually breathe. He was not used to formalwear and an hour was already too long. 

 

“Yeah, the whole stars and stripes went a little overboard.” Rhodey shrugged. 

 

“The whole american patriotism thing gets obnoxious…” Peter shrugged. “Although War Machine sounds super aggressive. But I’m not the best with superhero names.” 

 

“No shit, I mean, Spider-Man? Seriously?” Harley snickered and Peter rolled his eyes while Rhodey turned to Tony. 

 

“You adopted Spider-Man.” Rhodes raised his eyebrows but puzzle pieces started to fit together. Spider-Man made more sense than a random teenager. Now Harley was the mystery. 

 

“Yep. So?” Tony shrugged. He trusted Rhodey with his sons identity. He also knew that Rhodey was one to try to understand the reason for things and not just instantly judge. He wasn’t just going to Tony him without knowing all of the facts.

 

“What’s with the blond one then, two for one deal?” Rhodey teased. 

 

“Yeah, they were on sale.” Tony smirked and ruffled Harley’s hair as he was temporarily taller than him. 

 

“You’re a billionaire, why do you care about sales…” Harley rolled his eyes. 

 

“I don’t, I just thought that two was better than one. I mean I’m not letting potato gun kid live in a foster home. I may arguably be an asshole but I’m not a dick.” Tony smiled. 

 

“Pure poetry…” Rhodey rolled his eyes. “What are the Stark’s in the mood for food wise? I’m paying.” 

 

“As the kid said, I’m a billionaire, you don’t need to pay.” 

 

“Shut up, I’m trying to be nice.” 

 

-ExAvengers- Golden City- Wakanda- 22:00-

 

“Hey, did you guys hear that Stark got kids?” Sam said from his spot on the main room couch with Clint as Wanda aggressively made dessert.

 

“Wait, kids as in plural?” Clint said, baffled at the idea. 

 

“Yeah, Two of them. He apparently adopted two teenage boys about a week ago.” 

 

“That is ridiculous. Stark would be a horrible guardian.” Wanda grumbled as she beat down pastry dough. 

 

“Yeah, weird timing too… He’s not even married yet. I bet he didn’t even talk to Potts.” Sam rolled his eyes. Stark was definitely not his first choice as a parental figure. The guy was a moral mess. No one in their right mind would want to be under his care. 

 

“It’s funny that the guy that sucks the government's dick would not ask permission for anything. He doesn’t think about what damage he causes. I feel bad for those kids.” Clint stood up to inspect Wanda’s progress. She was cooking some fruity mixture on the stove while the dough rose. 

 

“I can’t imagine Stark trying to parent teenagers. There will be three Starks now. Three more than there needs to be.” Wanda scoffed. “At least it is not younger children, he cannot fuck them up too early.” 

 

“We obviously don’t want any clones of that guy. Are there any pictures of the kids?” Clint asked Sam. Sam typed on his phone and handed the device to Clint. “That’s sad. They look like good kids. They obviously don’t want to be in the spotlight. I would say that I can’t believe that he would use kids for press but I definitely can.”

 

“I think he’s trying to ease the tension about the whole civil war thing. People would rather focus on drama than actual legal shit.” Sam shrugged. “He’ll get rid of them for another scandal…” He continued, visibly disgusted. How could someone do that to children? 

 

“It’s bullshit.” Clint claimed. He tried to steal some of the jam from the pot but Wanda pushed him away with her red magic. 

 

Sam still wasn’t completely sure about what to think. He had barely met Tony and he didn’t know if this was out of character or just another crazy eccentric thing that he does. He stayed quiet and kept reading the article. Maybe this wasn’t completely unprompted…

 

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

The public reacted about as well as expected. Hashtags trended for as long as they usually did, only a day or two. A mass of articles and posts overflowed every media outlet. But it didn’t take long for them to move on. There were too many famous people and countries to exploit for anyone to really focus on one thing. 

 

For those few days, Peter and Harley had decided to stay off of social media and focus on a combined project. They made sure to follow up with Ned and MJ and they even started combat training. Peter focused on the physical stuff with the Vision and Harley learned how to use a gun with Rhodey. They switched after a few hours and Harley only held out with pure spite and competitive nature with Peter. 

 

Out of guilt, Peter tried to neutralize his enhancements. It took Harley four seconds to realize and call him out on his shit. Peter tried to play it off as him just not being that great in the first place. Harley rolled his eyes so hard that he could see the bullshit detector connected to his frontal lobe. He had to explain that he didn’t want to make Harley feel inferior which earned him a swift punch in the shoulder. 

 

Harley knew that he was not enhanced and he didn’t think that it made him any less of a superhero. Tony didn’t have any superpowers but he was still the leader of the Avengers. All three of them. Harley knew Peter’s mentality of putting literally everyone before himself and it was exhausting to keep up with. 

 

Peter was a polite little asshole that was more considerate than anyone deserved. It was equal parts annoying and kind of nice. Not many people put others before themselves. Harley didn’t know if it was because of the whole major self deprecation thing or if he was genuinely nice. He figured it was a little bit of both. Asshole. 

 

Once the social media fast had ended, Peter and Harley had to catch up a little. They read out articles to each other and laughed together at the most ridiculous ones. They found a bunch of awful pictures that had been taken at the press conference and they liked to send the worst ones to every holographic screen in the building. Peter could never escape the triple chinned menace that was his own face. 

 

There was bad press of course and it was weird to see themselves trending on most social media. Friday had blocked the worse posts and articles from their phones and there was a weird detachment from their newfound internet popularity and real life. That would change if they went outside and when school but for now, they would just pretend that nothing had changed. 

 

Because all in all, nothing had changed. It was only the world that changed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! Comments are like crack to me so if you want to keep me from going to validation rehab, comment how you feel about my work! I want to know your favorite lines and events, suggestions for later chapters (I already have a Halloween special, avengers pardoning and Pepperony wedding planned) I see my writing different than you do so I literally have no idea if it's good or not. So you'll have to tell me. 
> 
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> follow if you want to see art and other content of mine. 
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> I love you all and I can't wait until the next chapter!


	7. Halloween Special

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Stark's celebrate their first holiday as a family.

Halloween came a week after the chaos of the reveal. Peter had always been a little enthusiastic about most holidays, and because he never went to parties, he always needed shit to do. Whether it was attempt to make a special food, decorate a little too much or just go to the movies, he always had something to look forward to. 

 

At least he did while May was around. Now he was sure that no one would be as excited as he was. So he kept quiet. But he couldn’t help being a little bummed about it. The holiday also reminded him of May, she was always excited to help him with a costume or even to use her overtime money on way too much candy.

 

Peter really need to learn how to hide things because immediately when he entered the lab, Harley asked what was wrong. Peter dismissed the accusation. Harley let it go or at least Peter thought he did. He definitely knew that something was up but he didn’t make a fuss over it. He did tell Tony though. 

 

It was kinda weird when Tony confronted him about it. Peter was closer to the man han ever but he had also hero-worshiped the guy for a complete decade. He never thought that he would become this close to someone like Tony. He was Iron Man, and it had been super weird transition from hero worship to dad status. 

 

“I was told by a little bird that you were feeling down…” Tony approached the subject with his normal amount of suave. Which was a lot of suave. They were looking at Peter’s blood sample when Tony brought it up.

 

“I’m fine.” Peter replied, a little too quickly. He was more invested in Fridays data than before his father tried to say anything. “And that little bird should have kept his beak shut.” 

 

“Uh huh… that isn’t telling at all. Come on kid, I want to know what’s bothering you.” Tony looked right at Peter with a sincere intensity. 

 

“I promise that it isn’t that big of a deal.” Peter tried. 

 

“I don’t care if it’s not a big deal, something's bothering you and I want to know what. Even if you think it’s stupid.” Tony added. He had plenty of problems that he thought were not a big deal. He got panic attacks over little things like going to see a space themed movie in a huge theater. That was a mistake on his part. But if Peter was having a problem then Tony was not going to just let it be swept under the rug. He was not going to pass on his bad coping mechanisms to his kids, even if they had learned it before he met them. 

 

“It is stupid though. I was just- Halloween is coming up and it was just one of those things that I used to do with May and I don’t-” He stopped as he realized that he was on the verge of tears. He had spent so much time trying to push all of his thoughts of May away but that was unrealistic. A parent can’t just die without the child receiving some sort of psychological damage. Out of everyone, Peter should know better. 

 

“That’s not stupid Peter.” Tony said in the quiet gentle tone he tended to only use around his children and bots. “Kid, I can’t even look at a piano and it’s been thirty years since my mother died. Is that stupid?” 

 

“No… I just… fuck, I miss her. I keep forgetting that I miss her and then it creeps up on me again. I should know better, this isn’t the first time I’ve been through this!” He couldn’t prevent the angry sob that built up in his throat. “I keep feeling guilty for being happy, why the hell would I be happy without May!” He sobbed at her name. 

 

Before his first tear had escaped his face, Tony had wrapped an arm around his shoulders and let him lean in for comfort. Peter was glad that it wasn’t a full hug, as with his gasping sobs, he would’ve felt suffocated. 

 

“It’s going to be okay Pete. She would want you to be happy. I’m just thankful that you’re here with me and Harley. Little home of orphans right?” Tony leaned his head on Peter’s and experienced a weird moment where he felt like kissing Peter’s curls. It’s not like the parental spike was unwarranted but it was odd to have.

 

“Yeah, I guess we’re all a little fucked up…” Peter muttered. “I’m glad I’m with you guys too… I didn’t like being alone.”

 

“Boss, Are you busy? Doctor Cho has gotten back to us on the Spiderlings DNA sample.” Friday interrupted. Tony looked at Peter who shrugged, sending the message of ‘I don’t wanna talk yet, do whatever you want.’ 

 

“Sure, What’d the doctor find?” Tony combed a hand through Peter’s hair and looked at the holoscreen. 

 

“She found that Peter may not be able to thermoregulate efficiently, It is dangerous for him if his body temperature gets colder than ninety-seven degrees fahrenheit. He is likely to not be able to keep his body temperature high enough in cool conditions.” Friday stated. 

 

“Yeah, I get cold super easily…” Peter sighed through Tony’s shoulder. 

 

“Okay, more blanket’s for the spiderbaby. Anything else?” 

 

“His metabolism and healing factor combined seem to eat through all tested medicines and painkillers. Doctor Cho says that she can try to make an enhanced anesthetic for a price.”

 

“Do it.” Tony didn’t hesitate to answer. Being Spider-Man was basically a guarantee that Peter would get hurt. And Tony was going to do as much as he could to help him. Pain relief was one of those things that was mandatory for someone in the superhero business. “If something happens, we want to be prepared right? How much does she want? It doesn’t matter just give her more.” 

 

“Got it boss.”

 

“So kid,” Tony started softly, “What do you wanna do for Halloween? I bet we can find a cheesy horror film and eat so much candy that we explode.” 

 

“That sounds good… We should do impromptu costumes. I think I still have an iron man mask…” Peter replied weakly. Tony remembered the videos from when he found out that May had died and Peter was forced to move out of his own home. Tony also remembered the child sized iron man mask.

 

“How about you choose something more comfortable. Walking around in armor all day is not as fun as you think it is.” Tony wiped a stray tear from Peter’s cheek with his thumb. 

 

“I’ll figure something out.” Peter smiled a little.

 

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

“How the hell do we find a scary movie that is enjoyable to people with Post-Traumatic disorders?” Harley asked as he was scrolling through a streaming service. “I don’t want to be forced to watch ‘The Nightmare Before Christmas’ again I swear I will scream.” 

 

“You could always go to does-the-dog-die-dot-com. We can look up movies and see if they have specific anxiety triggers.” Peter said casually. “I couldn’t watch any movies with plane crashes or mentions of sexual assault in them.” He shrugged even though the statement revealed a lot about the smallest Stark. 

 

“Yeah, I don’t want any car crashes or torture in it.” Tony added, not dwelling on Peter’s disturbing hints. 

 

“That sounds good. I’ll also add parent death and clowns. That doesn’t leave much left does it…” Harley muttered. “There are a bunch of ghost themed ones, with dolls and demons and all that shit…” He scrolled through movies, looking at their triggers and avoiding the ones that he knew had a major problem with them. 

 

“Fuck it, We’re watching Silent Night, Deadly Night 2.” Tony stole the remote from Harley while Friday queued the movie. “Now, Pepper is going to be home soon and If any of you plan on using her makeup, I’d do it before she arrives.” Peter jumped up and ran off. 

 

“I couldn’t get his idea out of him. Do you have any clue what he’s up to?” Harley asked Tony with a suspicious glance. 

 

“I don’t know… I bet ten dollars that he’s going to be a Star Wars character.” 

 

“I’ll take you up on that bet. I think I have an idea…” Harley gave Tony a devilish grin which made Tony sigh. 

 

“That's not a good sign is it…”

 

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

Harley took one look at Peter and started to giggle uncontrollably. Peter was standing on the bathroom counter with a eyeliner pencil in his hand, carefully crafting artificial facial hair on his chin. He was making an absolutely ridiculous face that Harley wanted to ask Friday if she took a picture. He had a feeling that she did. Friday would probably have a database full of ridiculous pictures of all of them.

 

“Well, you don’t look too busy…” Harley said when he was able to breathe again. Peter turned around to face Harley slowly and looked at him with a dead serious expression. Harley was surprised that his brother would be able to act so seriously. 

 

“Actually, Harley.... I am busy.” Peter narrowed his eyes and was able to stay in character for a moment before he couldn’t stop the edges of his lips from rising. Soon enough, he was laughing with Harley so hard that he had to lean against the mirror for support. It took a ridiculously long time for them to regain their composure. 

 

“Are you seriously being Tony for Halloween?” Harley said breathlessly after the laughing fit. 

 

“Yeah, I thought it would be funny!” Peter defended. 

 

“We’ll you’re right about that… That effectively ruins my idea…” Harley rolled his eyes. 

 

“What was your idea? Did you want to be Tony too?” Peter said as he put down the eyeliner pencil. He was mostly done with his beard anyway. 

 

“Nah… Maybe I could be Dum-E…” Harley considered. “Or I could just borrow one of the suits. I really doubt they’re that uncomfortable if Dad wears them so often.” 

 

“I bet you could just ask Friday to disable all of the weapons. You’re not that much taller than Tony so I doubt that it would be a problem. I mean you should get used to a suit if you’re going to be Iron Man one day...:” Peter shrugged as he looked through Pepper’s eye shadow for a good tired purple for under his eyes. 

 

“I seriously doubt that. We already have one super kid in the family…” Harley raised his eyebrows. 

 

“I don’t want to be a solo act Harley.” Peter shrugged and grinned. “Come on, would you rather be the CEO of Stark Industries or be Iron Man. We can save the business for Tony and Pepper’s real kid.” 

 

“Yeah, you’re right. Running a huge business sounds boring. I’d rather fight aliens.” Harley grinned. “I’d rather give that responsibility to our future sibling. I can’t plan for shit anyway. What they hell do you do to run something that big?”

 

“No idea…” Peter said as he tried not to move his face too much to apply makeup. “Do you think that I should draw on wrinkles or will Tony be pissed…”

 

“Who cares.” Harley shrugged. “Do you really want to wear that makeup all night?” 

 

“Yeah I can’t just go half way. I’m going to see if I fit into any of Tony’s formal suits and I’m going to act kind of dramatic for the rest of the day.” Peter smiled. 

 

“You’re always dramatic.” 

 

“No I’m not. Shut up.” Peter smudged the eye shadow under his eyes until he looked properly tired. 

 

“You only revealed you were Spider-Man by catching a hundred pounds of concrete Pete… That’s pretty fucking dramatic.” Harley deadpanned. 

 

“Well it’s not my fault the school got bombed…” Or at least he was pretty sure. “I was planning on doing it like a gender reveal party but I didn’t have much of a choice. I’m not just going to let you all be squished...” Peter huffed.

 

“Do you think that Flash told anyone?” Harley dismissed the rest of the school incident.

 

“Yeah of course. I don’t know if anyone believed him.” Peter shrugged, “I don’t think it matters that much anymore… I was mostly keeping it a secret to keep May safe anyway. It didn’t really matter I guess.” 

 

“And you have Tony now so we kind of have the best protection possible. I mean it’s not that bad to come out as a superhero.” 

 

“Yeah, I guess. But then everyone would know that Spider-Man is just a kid… Tony would totally get attacked for that.”

 

“That makes sense. Hey can you pass me the hair gel? I don’t want my hair to get stuck in the suit.” Harley motioned his hand towards Peter. Peter picked up the bottle of hair gel and tossed it gently to his brother. “Cool, Thanks.” 

 

“Having a secret identity sucks dude.” Peter said as he looked at his handiwork of makeup on his face. It was definitely recognizable as Tony. Peter’s hair was a bit long but it wasn’t something he could change so he ignored it. 

 

“Yeah, Not everyone can be Batman or Superman,” Harley put an excessive amount of gel in his hands and started combing it through his hair. 

 

“It’s like being two people… I have totally personalities with being Peter and being Spider-Man. Like I’m totally confident and witty with the mask on. But then I have to play everything down as Peter. If I could, I would always be on the ceiling and never taking any sort of public transportation.” 

 

“I mean, what’s stopping you. Everyone here knows that you’re mutated with spider DNA.” 

 

“Just because you guys know doesn’t mean that it’s not weird. I don’t want to scare Tony in the morning if I just casually walk around on the ceiling. You guys are all normal and… human. I don’t know if I count as that anymore.” Peter said quietly. He was starting to regret opening up. 

 

“So? Hitler was human. Do you know who’s not human? Thor. Thor is not human and the Hulk isn’t human and they’re still cool right? That’s what makes them special and heroes. It’s not a bad thing to be different.” Harley said with a surprising amount of passion. Peter recognized why. Peter had been isolating himself. He had been trying to convince Harley that he was alone. In some ways he was. But he really wasn’t alone. Harley knew what it was like to feel alone and he was trying not to let Peter feel that way. 

 

“Thanks… shit it’s Halloween, aren’t we supposed to be happy?” Peter started out quiet but used the joking part of the sentence as his normal coping mechanism. It’s what he always did when things got uncomfortable. Make a joke. 

 

“Nah, we’re supposed to be scared. I’m going to get the suit, Hopefully your spider-sense thing doesn’t work today because you seem hard to scare.” Peter laughed at Harleys comment as he jogged away. 

 

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

“Are you kids ready yet? We’re eating the candy without you!” Tony yelled. He had already been waiting for a while, long enough that Pepper had come home and was very confused about what was going on. He sort of explained that they had kids now and kids enjoyed Halloween and candy.

 

In reply, Pepper just kicked off her heels and curled up in a blanket. It was starting to get cold outside and Tony remembered that it would be a problem for Peter too. He had gotten out a bunch of blankets and even found one that had belonged to his mother. He hesitated to bring it out but decided to anyway. It was worn and soft and smelled a little old but it brought back the family memories that Tony hasn’t seen in a while. 

 

“Just a second! You’ll have to prepare yourself!” Tony heard Harley yell from the next room over. Tony rolled his eyes and made sure to get comfortable on the couch. He put the bowl of candy between him and Pepper and picked out a large bag of M&Ms. 

 

Soon enough, Peter and Harley walked into the room. For a moment, Tony stopped breathing. Harley was in an early Iron Man suit with the helmet over his head. Peter had a drawn on goatee and meticulously styled hair with makeup under his eyes. 

 

“You little shits.” Tony said simply as Pepper started to laugh. Harley was released from the suit and he stumbled a bit to get out. They were both grinning from ear to ear. 

 

“You’ve got to admit that it’s very accurate…” Pepper really tried to reel in her laughter but it didn’t quite work. Tony rolled his eyes but ended up trying to hide his own smile. His kids just seemed so goddamn excited. It was too contagious. 

 

“Hopefully you saved the Recces for me.” Peter imitated the whole famous guy walk that Tony did whenever he went outside. It was basically just really good posture and showing off the butt. Harley snorted at the action and yawned. 

 

“Already?” Tony grinned. “We haven’t even started!” 

 

“Shut up.” Harley said with no real heat. Harley gave Peter a look. They had both had bad nightmares the night before so sleep was a little more desirable than normal. It seemed to be becoming a problem. Stupid trauma. 

 

“Come on, we have a really bad movie to watch and several pounds of candy to eat.” Tony handed each of his children a blanket while keeping his mothers to himself. For a moment he thought it was a little selfish but in the end it wasn’t like anyone else knew. Not even Pepper knew the meaning of the almost insignificant object. 

 

Peter grabbed an Iron Man fluffy blanket and wrapped himself up supernaturally quickly. They all sat down and started the movie. They laughed at the horrible acting and fought over candy until the people with sleep disorders started to fall asleep. By the end of the movie, Pepper was the only one awake and she smiled at her boys. They had all ended up practically on top of each other and covered in blankets. 

 

“Friday… Make sure to take a picture please.” 

 

“You got it boss.” The AI was much more quiet than normal and the picture replaced the movie menu on the TV. Pepper snuck over to her boys and gave them all a kiss on the forehead. Harley opened his eyes a little and muttered something that she could barely make out. But when she did, she was a little stunned, in a good way. 

 

“G’night mom.” his words were a little jumbled but she replied affectionately. 

 

“Goodnight baby.” Harley fell back asleep before he could realize what he called Pepper. She made sure they were all comfortable before leaving to go to an actual bed. 

 

If she looked at that picture for too long, no one would find out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! I changed my username on here and on Tumblr so that's a thing. I used to be GayGemGrump on both but Now I'm Science-lings. Comment if you enjoy my work and I'll try to update as often as I can. I love you all and I'm always looking for ideas for this fic. I do art for my fics and if you can see it on my tumblr. If you have art requests just comment or message me on Tumblr. I'll see you next chapter!


	8. Getting Back Together Part 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The ex-avengers come back

They’re coming back. Tony had finally worked enough to get the ex-avengers back. Sure, they would be forced to stay in the compound and not allowed to just go out and do whatever they want, wherever they want, but they were coming back. T’Challa actually convinced the ex-avengers that the accords were not there to hold them back. Tony owed T’Challa everything but he was not going to be happy to have them back. 

 

Tony had violent nightmares about having his father's shield being jammed into his chest where there only very recently wasn’t a device keeping him alive. Tony was very protective over his heart. Physically and Psychologically. Sure, he still had nightmares of other things, numerous severe traumatic experiences tended to cause that kind of stuff. But at the moment, it was mostly being beaten down to a pulp by his friend who had kept his parents murder from him. 

 

So, yeah, Tony wasn’t exactly glad that the ex-avengers were coming back. But they had to come back because his fear of them was overwhelmed by the knowledge that there was something worse on it’s way. They had to come back. If they didn’t, the earth will fall. Tony had to push aside his own problems for the good of the safety of the world. It definitely wasn’t the first time. 

 

The first challenge was to tell Harley and Peter about the new development. Tony wasn’t an idiot, he knew that his kids knew how he felt about Steve and the illegal avengers. Peter was with him right after siberia and Peter tended to be a heavily empathetic person. Peter was one of those people who could tell if someone was struggling with something. He kind of had to for his whole superhero thing. 

 

Harley was also not an idiot. He had followed the news and had never said anything about the illegal avengers. He knew the basics of what went wrong and he was not going to be the one to confront the problem. 

 

Telling them could’ve gone worse. It was while they were working in the lab, Tony had been telling them about his recent breakthrough in nanotech. So recent that it had only been about twelve seconds since Tony had figured it out. During the high of the discovery, Tony had let it slip that the other avengers were coming back. He was hoping that the moment of excitement would dampen the blow of the revelation. In a way, it did. 

 

“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” Harley said, looking up from the prototype microtech. 

 

“Of course. The world needs the avengers.” Tony shrugged.

 

“The avengers doesn’t have to be… them. There are plenty of people with the ability to be in a superhero team. I mean Pepper would make a pretty badass avenger and doesn’t Pym have a daughter?”

 

“Yeah, there needs to be more girls anyway. I think variety is pretty important. We can’t just be fighting with a bunch of overly muscular white guys.” Peter shrugged. 

 

“You’re an overly muscular white guy…” Harley deadpanned. 

 

“You don’t know. You’ve never seen me shirtless.” 

 

“Have I?”

 

“God I hope not.” 

 

“I mean you are Spider-Man, you gotta be shredded.”

 

“You have no idea…”

 

“Jesus kids, stay on topic…” Tony groaned at the temporary tangent. 

 

“Oh yeah, the illegal avengers. I don’t think they’re good for you…” Peter typed a bit on a holoscreen. His mind was half on the conversation and half on the idea of nanotech. 

 

“Well that’s too bad isn’t it. We might need them, I don’t want another New York or Sokovia.” Tony muttered. 

 

“It just shouldn't be you that has to deal with them. They’ve caused you enough trouble.” Harley grumbled. As a well informed individual, he knew that Tony was the financial supporter, tech designer, scapegoat and warzone rebuilder. The avengers were nothing without Tony and he was still the only one mocked and blamed for the mistakes of the group. 

 

“Yeah, well, they’re the only people who can deal with me.” 

 

“That’s Uncle Rhodey erasure.” Harley looked offended.

 

“And momma Pepper and Happy erasure. I can’t believe you would forget about them. What a shame…” Peter sighed in dramatic disappointment. 

 

“Hey what about you two!” Tony raised his eyebrows. 

 

“We do more than deal with you.” Harley snickered. 

 

“Hey!” 

 

And that was all they discussed about the illegal avengers. 

 

Until they arrived.

 

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

It was a normal day, everyone woke up a bit earlier than normal and Tony seemed a little more tense but nothing else was out of the ordinary until the wakandan jet appears and landed on the quinjet landing pad.

 

Rhodey and Pepper were there, standing a bit protectively in front of Tony with a certain hardness in their eyes that Peter and Harley didn’t fully understand. Tony hasn’t told either of them about Siberia and didn’t plan on it. They didn’t need to have another reason to go to therapy. Especially Peter who has already witnessed a parent's murder in front of him. Honestly, he would likely understand the most.

 

Tony’s heart rate picked up when the entrance of the vibranium jet opened and the figures started walking out. First it was King T’Challa and his handful of female guards, Tony tried not to focus on anyone else. If he could get away with ignoring his former friends, he would never want to talk to them again. It could be spite or betrayal but it was mostly personal fear than anything else. He was afraid of them.

 

“I’m glad that we could come to an agreement.” Tony shook the kings hand politely and avoided the eyes of his teammates. “The updated accords are in your old rooms and I’m sure you don’t need a tour.” Tony looked to Peter and Harley instead of to his old friends. 

 

Peter seemed to be partially having a nerdgasm but also somehow uneasy. Harley was stone faced and emotionless. Rhodey looked ready to go one on one with Steve Rogers and Pepper looked ready to join. Tony was kind of honored to have these people on his side.

 

“Tony, you can’t just ignore us.” Natasha said quietly. 

 

“After all you’ve done to him, he has the right to at least pretend he can’t see you.” Pepper said with a slightly venomous smile. 

 

“You’ll have to face us eventually.” Steve added. 

 

“Not without my suit you’re not.” Rhodey rested his arm on Tony, using him as a crutch while his prosthetics were being perfected. 

 

“Well, It’s been nice meeting you all.” Harley sighed. “Don’t break my house.” He turned around with Peter in tow and they disappeared in the private section of the compound. 

 

“What’s with the kids Stark, you know it’s not safe for them in our line of work.” Sam sounded mildly accusing.

 

“They’re better than any of us. Besides, I don’t leave vulnerable people alone to deal with their parents deaths.” Tony said with utter confidence as he met Sam’s eyes. “I knew them before I adopted them. They deserve a family as much as anyone else.” 

 

“And that family is supposed to be you?” Wanda rolled her eyes. 

 

“They’re less useless than hawkeye and mr.america over there. They are both smarter than I was at that age and I don’t doubt them one bit.” Tony retorted. He wasn't going to disclose Peter’s identity yet, as he was as far away from trusting these people as possible. But Peter’s abilities definitely attributed to him being not close to useless. 

 

“You’re putting them in danger.” Steve said sternly. 

 

“I’m also putting them in danger by having you here. Maybe I’m not meant to be a father but I’m not about to leave them for the wolves. Welcome back, please try to stay out of my sight. I’m not in the mood for forgiveness.” Tony turned away and followed where his kids went only minutes before. 

 

“How do you stand him?” Wanda sneered as she turned to Pepper. 

 

“I don’t just stand him. I’m marrying him. This way please, You won’t be allowed to leave the compound without explicit permission from the UN.” She started to lead them into the opposite end of the compound, away from the Starks. 

 

The newly legalized avengers were not just going to let this go. Tony couldn’t just ignore them and pretend that they didn’t have anything to discuss. 

 

They had to mend the relationship somehow and there were too many questions left unanswered. Who were these kids? Why were they so special? Why was Tony acting so weird? What had happened in the few months that they had been gone?

 

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

The other avengers weren’t allowed in the Stark’s suite and they rarely ever crossed paths. This didn’t do much as Tony’s nightmares returned with full force at their return. This was the first time that he was confronted with the fact that he wasn’t the only Stark that was struggling. 

 

He woke up in a cold sweat. It was only the second day since the other avengers had arrived and he hadn’t even seen them the whole time. He was thankful that the nightmare didn’t make him thrash and wake up Pepper who was fast asleep right next to him. He slid out of the bed and combed a shaking hand through his messy hair and stumbled quietly out of his bedroom.

 

In the kitchen, he was met with both of his kids silently drinking hot chocolate in some sort of practiced solidarity. Peter looked a little more withdrawn than usual and Harley caught his eye. Harley mouthed ‘bad night’ as he motioned towards his brother. Tony just responded with a nod. He walked in quietly and started to head towards the bar. He hesitated and decided on just getting some on the extra hot chocolate and slightly spiking it instead of just drinking alcohol. 

 

“Wanna talk about it?” Tony said in a hushed tone to Peter, who seemed to just realize that Tony was there. 

 

“He usually doesn’t share this stuff but you can try to get it out of him.” Harley shrugged as he sipped his own hot chocolate. 

 

“What about you? Why are you up?” Tony tilted his head to the side. 

 

“FRIDAY told me that Pete was having a panic attack. I helped get him out of it. He hasn’t had something this bad for a while…” Harley said softly. Peter didn’t even look like he was listening. He was really out of it. Tony knew that it was bad when Peter didn’t even try to hide it. 

 

“Is this normal? Why didn’t FRIDAY tell me anything?” The warm hot chocolate made the freezing memories stuck in his chest start to thaw. Hot chocolate was proving to be a good nightmare remedy.

 

“I mean it happens every few nights. We told FRIDAY not to tell you. I guess it was one of those things that makes us feel weak. What about you? You don’t seem to be handling the avengers back very well...” 

 

“Yeah… I didn’t think I could feel unsafe in my own home. How would you guys feel about moving back to the city? The tower already got bought by Oscorp but I have an apartment that we can discreetly use.” Tony brushed away his own problems with a dismissive hand motion.

 

“Sounds nice… Pete said he could hear them talking about us… I don’t think that they approve of… us.” Harley grumbled. 

 

“No shit. To them I’m just a rich asshole full of bad decisions. They think I’m going to fuck you up.” 

 

“Well it’s too late for that… we’re already fucked up.” Peter muttered, showing that he had been listening through his shaken state. 

 

“I know… I guess that’s what happens when you hold the Stark name. Sorry about that…” Tony shrugged. 

 

“Correlation is not causation, I had worse luck as a Parker. At least now I have more of a family now.” Peter muttered. Tony wrapped his arm around Peter’s shoulders. 

 

“I am very happy about that, now let’s go to bed, I think we all need it. I either want to prove those assholes wrong or I want to not care what they think. I usually end up being petty. I don’t know if I want to do it this time.” Tony helped Peter out of his barstool as Harley let out a wide yawn. 

 

“It’s going to be hard not to be petty father.” Harley smiled in his bright, devilish way that only meant trouble. Tony didn’t find it within himself to care. 

 

“I expect a well thought out plan by morning. I need to help your brother to bed, good night my child.” Tony ruffled Harley’s mop of hair. He just rolled his eyes and smirked. 

 

“Yes sir. It’ll be done by nine AM Mr. Stark.” Harley chuckled and whispered a goodnight to his slightly less emotionally stable brother before he strolled back to his own room. 

 

“I had a nightmare about Uncle Ben and Aunt May…” Peter whimpered once Harley had left. “It’s been a while since Ben’s death decided to come back to fuck me up.” 

 

“You saw him die again?” Tony replied, knowing much too well the situation that haunted his son. 

 

“Yeah… every time I can’t save him.” Peter held back a weak sob as Tony led him back to his room. “It’s my fault that he’s gone. It’s all my fault that he’s dead.” 

 

“Did you shoot him? Were you the one who held the gun?” Tony reasoned softly. “You didn’t. So how the hell is it your fault. It’s not your job to save people. You were like fourteen. It wasn’t your job as a child to save someone. It doesn’t matter if you had superpowers, it’s not your duty to do anything. You can’t blame yourself for something that wasn’t your fault. I know all about not being able to save people. You can’t put that on yourself.”

 

“But I felt it… I knew it was going to happen… I could’ve stopped it. Remember when you first recruited me, and I said that my whole motivation was just if I have the power to do great things, I have the power to stop bad things from happening. It was because I had the power to stop Ben from dying and maybe even May from dying but but I didn’t. And now I’ll never see them again.” Peter managed through forcing back sobs. 

 

Unknown to both Tony and Peter, they were not the only ones that could hear the conversation. Someone had snuck into the Stark’s suite after hearing muffled voices so late at night. They didn’t have any malicious intent, they only approached out of curiosity. 

 

The figure snuck through the hallway and peeked into the room where the voices were coming from. They were technically not surprised by what they saw. Natasha saw Tony embracing Peter, who was obviously distraught. 

 

Natasha had never seen Tony so comfortable with someone that wasn’t Pepper and it seemed odd to see him so close to a teenager in need of comforting. Tony Stark was not someone she would think of as soft and kind. However, at this moment in time, he honestly was. He wasn’t faking anything. Natasha knew when people were faking things, Tony was not pretending to be this way for Peter’s sake. 

 

She left the suite without being seen and she decided that she would have to convince the rest of the avengers of the thing that she had easily figured out. 

 

These kids needed Tony and even more interesting, Tony needed them. Tony was not bad for them. The other avengers had definitely underestimated and misread Tony and Natasha felt like it was her responsibility to clear the air. If anything, at least to make up for her mistakes. 

 

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

“You’re wrong about him.” Natasha said the next morning while Sam was making breakfast for the rest of their group of avengers. They had been in the middle of a heated conversation about Tony and his ridiculous idea to become a father. To them, Stark was the same as his father. Not many people in that room knew exactly how bad Howard had been and Steve still saw the man through rose tinted glasses of the past. 

 

Natasha was one of the people who knew though. She knew the effects of child abuse and she knew how bad it was for Tony to live in the shadow of the man who had hurt him. She knew that as a father, Tony would be as good as he could in spite of his own experience. Despite the man's mask, Tony was a terribly kind hearted, caring man that had been forcibly molded to be as hard and cold as iron. Natasha knew that the other avengers were not aware of this. 

 

“You can’t honestly think that Stark made a good decision.” Wanda seemed confused. 

 

“I don’t know if it was a great decision but you are all wrong about Tony’s character. I think he needed something like this.” Natasha took a bite of her pancake as most of the people in the room looked at her in shock. She rolled her eyes. “What does he do when something goes wrong?” 

 

“What do you mean…” Steve tilted his head like a confused innocent puppy. 

 

“He fixes things. He makes things. When we worked with him, he made things for us. He made things to protect us. He made us weapons and suits that were made because he cares. That’s how he cares. He was never shown any other way to care.” Natasha shrugged. “They are helping him find other ways to care. We all know that he does. He needs them as much as they need him.” 

 

“They shouldn't have to help him. They’re children.” Sam said rationally. 

 

“You are dramatically underestimating them. They already have helped him. Last night I saw it. Tony is much more caring than you give him credit for. He was just trained to act like a dick since his father missed his entrance into the world. He cares an awful lot for the people who prove to him that they won’t hurt him. It didn’t take these children long to prove to him that they weren’t us.” 

 

“It was never personal Nat. We didn’t betray him. We were just against the accords…” Steve said clearly as Natasha gave him a cold stare. 

 

“It was always personal Rogers. You never cared about the accords or keeping the Avengers together. It was never about us. It was always about Bucky to you, It was always about Tony’s parents murderer. It was always about antagonizing our friend to keep being in charge of our own group despite the people’s best interest. It was never not personal.” Natasha finished her food with her normal amount of calm aura despite the bite in her words.

 

“Excuse me gentlemen, I have the heart to apologize. I am at least aware of my own betrayal. I can only hope that Tony will talk to me. I know I don’t deserve it.” Natasha stood up and placed her dirty dish in the kitchens sink. She walked out of the silent room without another word. 

 

Her team was aware that she knew how people worked and that she had been trained to know how people worked. They knew that she was right, despite how much denial that they could have. They knew that she stood up for Tony because she was sure of her position. They didn’t dare argue. At least not to her face. She left to go find Tony and she hoped that he was awake. She really felt the need to apologize. So she would.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been a little slow this week and I'm starting a new project that I am really excited for. I hope this chapter isn't too bad, I've been having horrible writers block so thanks for enduring my shit. I still love you for reading this though. You can find me on Tumblr as Science-lings and Sciencelings-writes. COMMENTS ARE LIKE FUCKING METH TO ME, If anything makes me want to write more, it's comments. If you really liked my work, please tell me. If there are specific moments and characters that you like, I would love to know. I love all feedback but I will probably cry if it's bad. Don't let that stop you though lol. See you next time!


	9. Getting Back Together Pt. 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Stark's confront the avengers properly.

“You’ll have to talk to them eventually.” Harley shrugged over breakfast. Most of the time, the rest of the avengers would leave them alone but apparently Natasha had used FRIDAY to ask if she could speak to Tony. Tony had declined and she had backed off but he couldn’t avoid them forever. They all lived in the same house after all. 

 

“Not if I don’t have to.” Tony poked the yolk of an egg on the skillet and didn’t seem quite satisfied for some reason. 

 

“That’s why I said you will have to eventually. The sooner the better. I want to try out my armor out in the training gym and they keep hogging it.” Harley shrugged and almost choked on his mouth full of bacon because he was talking. 

 

Peter was snoring in a slumped position while he had been waiting for his food. Peter was great at falling asleep in ridiculous positions and this seemed to be one of those times. Harley was a little surprised that Peter wasn’t upside-down. Peter loved to just fall asleep on the ceiling. 

 

“I’m going to do what I do best and avoid the issue.” Tony shrugged. 

 

“Boss? Miss Romanoff is requesting to speak with you. She says she doesn’t mind if it’s face to face or not.” FRIDAY interrupted in a quiet enough volume to not jumpscare the sleeping spider kid. 

 

“You need to do it Tony. At least it’s not Steve…” Harley shrugged and poked Peter with the dull end of his fork. Peter didn’t even stir. 

 

“FIne, Connect me Fri!” Tony ordered his AI. It took a moment for Natashas voice to echo through the sound system. 

 

“Tony. I’m glad you answered this time.” Natasha started. “I wanted to apologize for my actions. I understand if you don’t want me to try to justify anything or if you can’t forgive me.” 

 

“Are you trying to manipulate me by trying to earn back my trust or are you actually serious.” Tony said suspiciously as he nudged fresh food to the sleeping Peter. Peter actually woke up for this but didn’t seem aware of the conversation between a couple of avengers. 

 

“Despite my past, I’m not always scheming. I am very serious about this. I don’t expect you to believe me but I wanted to try. After everything I think I still have a little bit of a moral compass.” Natasha attempted a laugh to clear the chill in the air. Harley wasn’t sure if it worked. 

 

“Well you’re the first person to try so I appreciate that. But it sounds like you need something else.” Tony waited a moment for an answer. 

 

“Steve has been wanting to see you. I believe he has good intentions. I don’t know exactly what happened between you but I can guess. I covered for you a few times, he seemed ready to barge through the security systems. I don’t believe either of you should be alone during this… civil discussion. I think you should talk to him. If anything to answer a few questions.” Nat said in as much of a neutral tone as she could muster.

 

“I don’t want to talk to him. Last time we had a civil discussion, we tried to kill each other.” Tony grumbled. Peter finally seemed aware of what was going on as he squinted at his father with silent suspicion. Tony mouthed back a ‘tell you later’ while Harley rolled his eyes and replied with a silent ‘you fucking better.’ 

 

“We’ll all be there and I promise that there will be no fighting. At least from their side.”

 

“Oh so you’re on my side now.” 

 

“I don’t usually take sides Tony. But with all of the information that I have, I am against the opinions that… they seem to have. See, they underestimate you a great deal, It’s ludacris. I don’t claim to know you but I am not blind. They see you as someone who is selfish and heartless. We both know that’s pretty ridiculous. If you come and talk to Steve, I’ll teach your other spider.” 

 

“Of course she knew.” Peter groaned before yawning a bit dramatically. 

 

“Hello Peter. I can’t wait to properly meet you. Is Harley in there too? I want to give him a gun for his birthday. One of those really small cute ones.” 

 

“You are not giving my kids weapons!”

 

“Tony, we’re literally working on a highly weaponized suit for me.” Harley deadpanned. “It has several weapons.” 

 

“Yeah but it’s a learning experience! You’re building your own suit of high tech set of armor! I’m teaching you shit right?” 

 

“Welcome to the superhero club then. Everyone needs another iron man around. Maybe Mr. Stark will have time to take care of himself now.” Natasha spoke through FRIDAY. 

 

“Not gonna happen Romanoff.” Tony promised. 

 

“Shit, Bucky is looking for me. I hope to see you later. Take care of yourself or at least take care of your kids.” Natasha chuckled. The conversation started out tense but at the end, everyone seemed at ease. It gave Tony hope that things could go back to where it used to be. At least with some of them. 

 

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

“What exactly happened in Siberia?” Peter asked when he was awake enough to comprehend the answer. Tony was quiet for a long moment before he let out a breath. Peter and Harley waited for a minute before Tony was ready to answer.

 

“Rogers lied to me. For years. About something very personal to me and I guess something very personal to him.” Tony said, purposefully vague. 

 

“Can you just be clear for once…” Harley pressed. 

 

“Well, Rogers-Steve… he knew. You guys know Barnes right? They guy with the metal arm that is now chilling in Wakanda? No pun intended…”

 

“Yeah, I fought him and the Falcon guy.” Peter tilted his head. Was Bucky in Siberia too? 

 

“In Siberia… Our bad guy showed me a video. The video of Barnes killing my parents.” Tony’s voice had gradually turned into a harsh whisper. 

 

“I thought your parents died in a car crash.” Peter said slowly. 

 

“So did I… But apparently our assassin friend was brainwashed and forced to kill my only family. After the video… I saw red, I lost control…”

 

“That’s understandable… I mean… I kinda did the same thing with Ben…” Peter muttered and looked to the ground. Out of everyone, he could relate to Tony the most. He had seen his uncle get murdered in front of him. He had reacted less than calmly to the situation. He had gone after the murderer but never ended up getting to him and he regretted losing his cool. He just lost it after all signs of Ben’s life had left him.

 

“We fought… I don't remember much before he slammed his shield into my arc reactor and ripped my helmet off.” This made Peter wince. Tony raised an eyebrow as Peter explained why this bothered him so much. 

 

“I mean your heart is like your weak point right? Also didn’t your dad make that shield? It’s pretty fucked up that your dad’s murderers best friend tried to kill his friends son with the shield that he had made for him. And I can imagine being protective of your heart after the whole arc reactor thing. It was the only thing keeping you alive for a while.” Peter rambled a little. “Jesus Christ, no wonder you don’t feel comfortable being around him…” He shivered. 

 

“Yeah that’s fucked up. Why did you let them come back anyway?” Harley asked. 

 

“Because something is going to happen that I can’t do alone. I’m not exactly the earths best defender. I’m not enhanced or a god and I haven’t gone through a lifetime of training. We’ll need them. Eventually.” 

 

“What good are the avengers if you guys are broken?” Harley asked.

 

“It doesn’t matter. They’re the best we have.” Tony sighed.

 

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

The first conversation with the Avengers could’ve gone better and worse. It mattered if you were talking to an optimist like Peter or a pessimist like Harley. 

 

When the Stark’s walked into the main area where the other avengers resided, Natasha immediately gave them a warm smile. Natasha might be emotionally distant but she wasn’t a robot. She genuinely liked Clint’s children and she knew that she would like Tony’s children if they were anything like their father. She couldn’t resist smartasses.

 

“Hey kids, glad you decided to show up.” Nat caught Tony’s eye and nodded microscopically to assure that she was on their side. Of course Tony was sceptical but he was a little low on allies at the moment. Pepper, the CEO of his company, couldn’t just stick around all the time, but she had been ready to throw down with the other avengers at a moments notice. 

 

“Stark.” Wanda said as a form of greeting. 

 

“Hello everyone. You guys have one chance to throw all the insults you want at me, then I’m going to remind you why you aren’t kill-on-sight criminals, got it?” Tony said a little harshly. 

 

“T’Challa did most of the work.” Sam shrugged. 

 

“Whose house are you living in? None of you have paying jobs or anyone else to pay for housing and equipment. The King of Wakanda is not your sugar daddy anymore. I’m all you have. I spent months of sleepless nights getting you back because the world will need you, but I sure as hell don’t.” Tony snapped. 

 

“That was quick..” Nat sighed quietly. 

 

“I wanted to get it over with.” Tony turned to her and shrugged. “Anything else you want to get out of your systems?”

 

“Yeah, there are a few elephants in the room. Two of them actually.” Wanda looked at Peter and Harley who had settled next to Natasha who was showing the kids something on her phone. 

 

Tony knew that the avengers would want to talk about Tony’s life developments which was literally him just getting a family. Tony didn’t know if the avengers didn’t think that he didn’t deserve a family or if they didn’t think he could handle one. It wasn’t any of their business anyway but of course it got brought up. 

 

“It was big news didn’t you hear? I have kids now.” Tony shrugged as Harley and Peter looked up as they had been mentioned. 

 

“Why though. You do not seem like… a stable father.” Wanda tried to explain. 

 

“I knew each of them personally before they came into my care. Harley over there helped me when no one gave a damn about me during the mandarin thing, and Peter here was my brilliant high school intern. They deserve to have a family right? Even if it’s me.” Everyone was silent for a moment and Tony was afraid his deeply rooted self deprecation came through a little bit too strong there. Then Harley spoke. 

 

“He’s right… Nobody adopts teenagers. We would’ve just been in the system until we were eighteen and then kicked out to live on our own. I already had to be in there for years and I had to watch my sister get adopted. It’s nice to have some stability with someone who actually gives a shit about me.”

 

“Yeah, I’ve already been orphaned once and the second time was pretty shitty so I’m really glad that I wasn’t alone at least. I couldn’t have chosen a better person to be adopted by. With all the shit that happened, I’m very surprised that I’m as mentally stable as I am now.” Peter shrugged. “No one knows loss like someone who has experienced the same thing.” 

 

“Stark doesn’t know pain child.” Wanda muttered and earned a fiery look from Peter. 

 

“I think that witnessing your parents death, being kidnapped, being poisoned by the thing keeping you alive, being blamed for an apocalyptic event, and being abandoned by you friends are all pretty fucking painful.” Harley rolled his eyes. 

 

“You told them?” Steve asked softly. 

 

“I try to be truthful to my family about my family. What? You didn’t tell your friends that you fucked up? What a surprise.” Tony deadpanned and felt the rare warm feeling in his chest when Harley was so aggressively protective. 

 

“I didn’t think that my team really needed to know something that personal.” Steve stayed annoyingly mellow. For once, he seemed to be trying to avoid a fight. 

 

“Is that the same excuse you used when you convinced yourself that keeping the information that ‘your buddy murdered my parents’ away from me?” Tony growled. His anger contrasting to Steve’s calm made him think that Steve genuinely didn’t understand how traumatic the experience was. 

 

“It was a mistake to keep it from you but I had to protect Bucky.” Steve said, as if his thought process was entirely rational. 

 

“I’m not going to argue, solely on the fact that I know you don’t care. When anything is put up against Bucky, a known assassin, Bucky is always going to win for you. Nothing else matters right?” Tony shrugged. “Now that we have everything out of the way, we need to figure out how to be a team before the next alien invasion.” 

 

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

“Do you really think that training is the best thing to do right now?” Peter asked Tony, who was picking out which armor he wanted to use. 

 

“Yeah, I actually do. On the field that’s what we need have the most practice with and I am a little rusty after using the last handful of months focusing on getting therapy and taking care of children and changing laws. Also I really want to show off-I mean- help Harley practice with his armor. Are you sure you don’t want to go all Spider-Man on the avengers?”

 

“Yeah, I don’t want them to bitch about me being too young to be a superhero or whatever. Besides, I’m sure Pepper would want to know about what went on and she doesn’t usually mind if I skype her at work. She told her assistant that I was her son the other day!” 

 

“You… are her son…” 

 

“Yeah but she said it!” Peters passion about Pepper calling him her son made Tony smile. He was very glad that his fiance was completely on board with the whole situation with Harley and Peter. 

 

“You’re my kid too you know. My tiny child. My boy. One of my boys.” 

 

“It is a little weird to think about. I mean I idolised you for a shit-load of my childhood and now you’re my dad.” 

 

“I’m pretty sure we’ve had this conversation before kid. But yeah, I can get that. Come here my son, we should call my fiance so that she can see me kick ass alongside my other baby boy.” 

 

“Oh my god… We’re not baby’s…” Peter groaned. 

 

“You’ll always be my baby.” 

 

“Jesus Christ…” 

 

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

Peter sat safely on the sidelines with Pepper on the screen of his phone. She didn’t have a meeting for another few hours so she just worked with Peter talking in the background. She looked at him every once in a while and chuckled just to show that she was still listening.

 

She didn’t mind the constant chatter, it reminded her of Tony when he got super into something and wanted to tell her all about it. Even though she couldn’t understand every bit, she still enjoyed when they got all hyper about a project or an event. 

 

Everyone else had gathered in their full uniforms in the middle of the room where FRIDAY was preparing to send in a legion of training bots. Tony was explaining how the exercise would work and everyone seemed to be listening. That was an improvement that Tony hoped would not be temporary. He would appreciate when people listened to him about things like the undeniable doomsday aliens.

 

“Are you planning on joining us?” Nat asked, appearing behind Peter without him noticing. 

 

“Nah, I don’t need to add to the chaos... “ Peter shrugged and managed not to jerk in surprise about someone actually being able to sneak up on him. 

 

“Yeah… Maybe we can train later. I want to train the little spider in my footsteps.” Nat grinned. 

 

“I would not say no to that. I probably need it, I don’t think I can rely on my powers constantly.” 

 

“How did you get your powers anyway?” 

 

“Uh, I got bitten by a radioactive spider during a school field trip to Oscorp. I just happened to be the lucky kid I guess. It could’ve been anyone but the spider decided to go for the short nerdy kid with glasses.” 

 

“It went for the selfless genius you mean. Tony had a file on you before the whole civil war mess. While I recruited T’Challa to our cause, Tony got you. Not because he is good at talking to children or he had any idea what he was doing, but because you are a whole lot like him. Tony found out that you were just this kid living with his aunt that swung around the city and saved people even though you’re a teenager with no reason to put yourself in danger. I think Tony admired that. He knew that you were special. And I agree. Not just that you have powers, but because you thought you had the obligation to help people with them. That’s pretty admirable.” 

 

Peter was silent for a moment for obvious reasons. The avenger Black Widow didn’t just know who he was when he was still small time, but she complimented him in an oddly genuine way. Thankfully before he could answer, Tony yelled to Natasha from the rest of the group.

 

“Get your ass over here, I don’t want you corrupting my kid!” 

 

“I’m coming! I’m not corrupting your child! I actually like him.” 

 

Once Natasha had joined the group, the exercise started. And if one of the training robots wandered over towards Peter, no one saw him take care of them. Thankfully, the avengers were busy enough to not notice Peter rip the head off of a robot. 

 

There may have been a few arguments but overall the exercise was a success. The avengers would be back to normal in no time. Hopefully.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been having a lot of trouble with this chapter so I apologize. I also don't want to come across as too anti-team cap. I will grant them some nice character development but at the moment they don't completely understand what Tony is thinking and Tony isn't great at showing his emotions completely. I am not anti cap or anti team cap. this chapter was a little ooc for them so I'm sorry about that as well. Comment if you liked it, Comments are like crack to me and they really help me want to write. I had a lot of trouble with my laptop last week and I had to get a new one so it took an extra day so whoops. I love you all and I'll see you next time. 
> 
> My tumblrs are (Science-lings) and (Science-lingswrites)


	10. Building Wedding Bells and Therapy Night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Time to unlock Harley's tragic backstory.

Tony really didn’t think too much about the wedding thing. He and Pepper didn’t care when it happened. Tony never romanticized the idea of a wedding like most young couples would. He would probably be expected to be over the top and he really wasn’t motivated to start planning something that big anytime soon. 

 

He only started thinking about it more when Harley asked about it. It just came up during conversation while Peter was on patrol and Tony was teaching Harley how to fly in the armor. He was catching on fast but was pretty shaky. 

 

“So when are you and Pepper getting married?” Harley asked as he landed on the ground. He made his uncolored, slightly gold tinted, suit pop him out and he stumbled for a few steps. TOny kept his arms out to help his kid stabilize on the solid ground. 

 

“I don’t know… We’ve been a little busy recently. She’s kind of the CEO of a huge tech company and I’m kind of the leader of the Avengers. Besides with our level of fame, it would be bigger than the royal wedding. I’m already stressed enough…” Tony sighed. “Have you decided what colors you want your suit to be painted?” 

 

“Well, the whole family has red on their armor so I don’t want to break the tradition… Maybe red and black. I mean Pepper has red and white and Peter has red and blue. I guess I could also go for black and gold. I don’t know, don’t change the subject. You should get married soon, before the next apocalypse.” Harley shrugged and stretched a little. “I mean you got everyone back and you’re on relatively good terms. It’s the perfect time. You can literally just hire someone fancy to do everything for you.” 

 

“Pepper would want everything to be not extravagant, but I am one of the most extravagant people that are still around. It will take forever just to pick out the colors.” Tony sighed. When he got married he definitely wanted it to be perfect, it was an important time in their lives so why skip out on anything? Pepper deserved everything he could give her and even more. 

 

“I bet you could make it fun. I mean, how long has it been since you hosted a party?” 

 

“I think it was Clint’s birthday before the civil war… But a wedding isn’t quite a party…”

 

“Yes it is. It’s a very special party. It’s not that hard to have fun with planning it. You better start soon, You never know when we’ll have another world ending event…” Harley shrugged. Tony, while not quite intrigued with the idea yet, decided to at least talk to Pepper about it. Maybe she wanted to do it sooner like Harley wanted. 

 

“I’ll think about it, wanna check on Peter? I reinstalled the baby monitor protocol on it and we can watch it like a first person video game.” 

 

“Neat. Does it notify him if we’re watching?”

 

“Not if I tell Karen not to… What are you thinking.” 

 

“You’ll see…”

 

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

After scaring Peter while he was eating a sandwich a few thousand feet in the air, Tony and Harley talked to Peter for a bit before he had to go stop crime or whatever. Tony left the testing room for a moment to try to call Pepper and ask her about how she felt about actually starting on setting up the wedding. 

 

The first call didn’t go through as Pepper was at a meeting but an hour later in the workshop with Harley, who was adjusting his suit, he called again. 

 

“Hey Pep, You busy?” Tony leaned his chair back at a dangerous angle. 

 

“I’m the CEO of a company, of course I am. Is something wrong?” She sounded like she was relieved for the momentary break from the constant work. 

 

“No, not at all. I just.. I wanted to talk about something… something important but not worrying. I can hear you worry from here.” Tony said dismissively. He watched Harley work with his suit and couldn’t help the swell of pride towards his son. 

 

“Okay… I guess I can spare a few minutes.” Pepper sighed briefly. 

 

“When do we want to start, you know, planning for the wedding… I mean I just finished working out the avengers shit and I don’t want to wait long enough for another world ending scenario.” 

 

“Well I guess we can start planning… Neither of us have that many friends, who are we going to invite? I don’t even know who my maid of honor would be.” Pepper laughed softly. 

 

“You’ve been hanging out with that woman from Pym tech… Pym’s daughter… what’s her name… Hope? Hope! You like her right? You hang out with her when you get sick of us boys.” This comment earned a more real laugh from Tony’s fiance. 

 

“I can ask. Let’s talk about this when I get home, if you can wait that long. What brought this up so suddenly?” 

 

“Oh, it’s nothing. Harley just mentioned it and I thought that it would be a good time to start now that I have so much time on my hands not cleaning up someone’s mess.” Tony mentioned casually. 

 

“Well, I expect a full research report when I get back.” Pepper chuckled. “I’ll see you in a few hours.” 

 

“Love you.” 

 

“Love you too. Bye.” Pepper hung up and Tony turned to Harley who was managing to avoid injuring himself with intricate metalwork. 

 

“Ask me if you have any problems… I have some research to do…” Surprisingly enough, weddings were one of those things that Tony had no idea where to start. 

 

He’ll figure it out.

 

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

Tony arranged for Rhodey to come back to the compound so that he could ask his best friend to be his best man. He had a list of guests and wasn’t sure if he wanted the former rogues to be part of that. They were technically his friends and he didn’t want them to miss out on something as big as this but he still didn’t quite feel… safe around them. But just because he felt a little off around them didn’t mean that he had to exclude them from this big event. 

 

He would have to think about it. But he already had a group of people that he did trust enough to actually be a part of the wedding. Since Pym tech had been taken back from Cross industries, Hope von Dyne had taken over after being Cross’ secretary. Hope had worked a lot with Pepper when they decided to dissolve the bad blood between the late Stark and the retired Pym. Tony had never had any personal beef with Pym, he only knew what his father whined about the man.

 

Tony had met Hope once. She had the kind of no nonsense and professional attitude that reminded Tony of Pepper and she took no shit from him. He actually appreciated it. She managed to take him down a notch without being disrespectful and he shuttered at the team that she and Pepper would make. Together they would probably be able to rein in Tony’s chaotic personality. 

 

Tony had found the best wedding planner in the united states as he honestly did not know what he was doing and Pepper wouldn’t want him just doing whatever he wanted. If he had his way, they wouldn’t have to find a pastor or whatever the fuck. It would be a reason to buy fancy-ass clothes for everyone and they wouldn’t invite anyone just for the celebrity status. 

 

Ever since he had proposed, high end fashion designers were practically begging to make Pepper’s dress and even make something exciting out of Tony and their boys. Tony thought that Peter would be a little excited as he timidly took part in generally female coded activities. Nobody even noticed when Peter used Pepper’s bright red nail polish. Later Peter said that he calmed himself down by doing methodological activities like sewing and painting his nails. He said that’s what he did when he didn’t have any tech to take apart and put back together. 

 

It didn’t really matter to Tony, They all had weird coping mechanisms. A few times a week, Tony would wake up from a nightmare to find Peter and Harley already awake in various states of consciousness. Although Peter was normally the unresponsive one, Harley had his bad days as well. Eventually they got him to open up about his own past traumas. 

 

It was one of those sadly common occurrences where everyone had been woken up by some past trauma. Even Pepper was awake from a flashback of being injected with extremis. They all sat in silence drinking their assortment of hot comfort drinks until someone got fed up from nothing ever getting fixed. 

 

“Fuck it, we’re doing feelings now. Everyone get comfy.” Surprisingly enough, it was Tony who decided to tear down the feelings dam. 

 

They all moved their drinks to the couch where several blankets waited to be used. It took another moment of silence for everything to start. 

 

“Okay, the thing that bothered me this time was my most recent major drama. I recently found out that my parents were murdered instead of killed in a car crash like I was led to believe for most of my life. What was worse is that… I saw it. It was on video. I had to watch my parents die at the hand of someone that my friend trusted more than me. I keep seeing that goddamn metal arm around my mother’s neck and I can’t just- fuck… I can’t be in the same room as Steve without thinking about that he knew and didn’t care enough to tell me. God that was a mess but if I have to open up, you guys do too. I know you guys already know all of it but it has been bothering me more than anything at the moment.” Tony rambled quickly, they all knew the story but saying it again didn’t hurt.

 

The room went silent again until Pepper decided to go. 

 

“I often relive my trauma in vivid nightmares, it’s like they’re happening all over again. They never change… It’s usually the mess with Killian and extremis but tonight it was something else. I was on a plane, going away from New York City, I had to watch on their shitty TV screens that Iron Man was flying into a giant wormhole with a nuke in his arms. I watched Tony fall and I was too far away to do anything. It was only when we landed that I realized that he had tried to call me. I almost had to hear Tony die… I almost didn’t get to hear him one last time when he was trying to reach out to me before he tried to sacrifice himself for the world.” Pepper slowly said in a whisper to avoid tears. 

 

“I didn’t know that… that bothered you that much…” Tony muttered. 

 

“Surprisingly enough, I cared about you a whole lot even back then. And even then I was tired of you almost dying.” Pepper chuckled softly. “Okay, I’m done.” 

 

“It wasn’t too bad for me tonight.” Peter shrugged. “I mean it was enough for me to want to be a little restless. So you know the whole vulture thing a few months ago? Well, during that I may have ditched my homecoming date to fight her dad and he seemed weirdly okay with killing me so that he could hijack a stark plane to sell all the shit on it.”

 

“ During that I may have… had several tons of concrete from an empty warehouse fall on me… so that sucked… and I dream about that a lot. I wake up feeling like I can’t breathe and that I’m being crushed by a building. So when we almost got crushed by the school I had a nice reminder that as a superhero I can’t have fears like that.” Peter groaned as if his trauma was just an annoyance instead of a completely valid reason to go to intensive therapy. 

 

“A building fell on you? How the hell did you get out.” Harley asked with wide eyes. 

 

“Uh… I picked it up. Of course I cried a bit first but after some internal struggle, I just picked it up.” Peter shrugged. He didn’t like to talk about the whole thing as it was kind of embarrassing that he was tricked and still struggled with the aftermath.

 

“Let me get this straight, you picked up a building?” Tony used his surprise to muffle his concern. 

 

“Well at that point it wasn’t much of a building…” Peter adjusted himself out of mild discomfort. 

 

“What the hell kind of internal struggle helps you pick up a building from off of your back?” Pepper asked, disbelieving. 

 

“I just had to remember that I’m not just Peter Parker anymore. I’m not the scrawny dork that got beat up. I’m Spider-Man too. I am more than just a suit and I needed a little push to realize that I am more than an orphan from Queens. I had to realize that being a hero meant fixing your mistakes. Superheroes save people but it’s okay to just save yourself. Also I really wasn’t used to actually exerting my strength. I have to hold back constantly because nothing can withstand my awesome rockin’ spider muscles.” Peter made a joke and weakly flexed his biceps to pull back from the inspirational shit. He got that way when he was tired, it pulled out the Uncle Ben in him. 

 

He had looked at Tony when he mentioned the suit. Peter wanted Tony to know that he had heard his mentors voice when he was picking up the ruble. He needed Tony to know that he was the person that saved him. 

 

“I guess it’s my turn then… I didn’t get tortured or almost killed or any of that shit… I just… When my mom died, in that car accident right? Uh, they didn’t let me see her body. They warned me that it was too gruesome for me to bear and that she was practically unrecognizable from the fire. I didn’t listen and I snuck in, just out of any hope that I could see her again. I- I really regret that. The police were right… god it was terrible. I keep seeing her face and I know that it used to be mom and it was- god it was the fucking worst. It was like something out of a zombie movie… but it used to be her…” Harley teared up a little and quickly whipped his eyes. 

 

“That’s horrible.” Peter muttered, genuinely distraught. He couldn’t imagine. Seeing Ben… lifeless had been the worst moment of his life next to seeing May lifeless. But they were still… them. They haunted his dreams in different ways… but it could’ve been worse. 

 

“Jesus Christ we’re all fucked up. Why isn’t there a superhero therapist…” Tony sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “Okay, we all need to go to actual therapy… We need things to get better. We can’t just try to live off of a few hours of sleep because we’re too tormented to close our eyes. We have all lived through horrible things but that’s the thing, we lived. Don’t take that for granted. We may be the most broken and busted up people on the planet but we’re still here. And you’re not alone. We’re all in this mosaic of broken glass together and I’m going to glue the fuck out of us. That was a weird metaphor but you get it right?”

 

“Yeah… I guess. Can we go to bed now? Feelings make me tired…” Peter said, slightly surprised that unloading his troubles helped him be a little less controlled by them. He thought that telling these strong people would make him feel weak but instead it felt like the opposite. He wasn’t alone anymore and he really needed to hear it. He really needed to be convinced by it. He had always seen Iron Man from the outside where no one really knew of his actual struggles and it felt so… human. 

 

They were all some sort of weak. But so was everyone else. If a hero could be human, it’s okay for you to be too. 

 

“No, I want to turn on a movie and we can all fall asleep on the couch because I really don’t want to move and I don’t really want to be alone.” Tony ordered, even though he knew he wouldn’t be alone, he slept in the same bed as Pepper anyway. But he wanted to make sure that these broken, healing kids were going to be okay. He wished he could fix every problem and maybe with a little bit of time, he could. But at the moment, the best thing they could do was catch up on sleep. 

 

The family of iron fall asleep in a pile of blankets as a happy disney movie played softly in the background. Movies were slowly turning into their automatic comfort activity and they didn’t really mind. There were a whole lot of movies to see after all. 

 

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

After talking to Rhodey and Sam, people who knew therapists that could help with army veteran levels of PTSD, Tony found someone that could help them. God knows he would do anything to keep that look of utter despair off of Harley’s face and the lost child look off of Peter’s. He was annoyed that he didn’t realize that they needed serious help sooner. He didn’t know that Pepper had nightmares about the same things he had nightmares about. 

 

The man they had found was someone that Sam promised to be trustworthy. Sam may not be a fan of Stark but he knew the importance of getting help and he wasn’t petty enough to keep it from the family. 

 

The man was named Doctor Jericho Drumm and Sam promised that he could handle anything they threw at him. Tony didn’t have much of a choice but to believe him. 

 

Starting to get help was not easy. But they had to if they had any hope to heal. Despite everything, they knew they could. They had to. Tony was good at fixing things and this was one thing that he couldn’t afford to not fix. 

 

Everything was going to get better, and Tony was going to fight for that light at the end of the tunnel. Even if he didn’t feel like he deserved it, he knew that his family did. He thanked god that he had one of those now. It had taken a while to find the drive to fight for something, but he had found it now and he was more determined than ever to make everything right. Because of he didn’t deserve it, they sure as hell did. And for Tony, they were worth fighting for. 

 

He just wasn’t aware that they thought he was worth fighting for too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! So it's my birthday today so that's why this is a little off schedule. Sorry. I would love nothing more than a comment or two. I'll admit, this chapter is a bit of a mess and a bit of venting for me. Look forward to next chapter as it is the wedding one! I needed more time to plan so I just barfed up a whole chapter just to keep on schedule. I promise next chapter will be better, I just needed a little bit more time to get it all planned out like I want it. I'll see you guys soon!
> 
> Follow my tumblr (Science-lings) and (Science-lingswrites) if you want more content and stuff from me. I'll be doing a lot more art and stuff. After the wedding fic would you guys mind if I took a few weeks off of this fic to start something else? IDK i just have a lot of ideas and I can't wait to write them. 
> 
> Bye! See you next chapter! I love you a whole lot!


	11. The Big Day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony and Pepper get married!

Over the uneventful weeks of therapy and wedding planning, a whole lot of developments took place. Harley updated U so that the bot could connect to the internet and livestream the wedding, Pepper found out that Peter liked photography and bought him the best camera on the market while insisting that he was good enough to be the wedding photographer, somehow using several wedding planners and cutting a few traditions, they were able to make the wedding happen before Christmas. 

 

They decided that making everyone completely match would be annoying and complicated, so they just had a certain identifier for people who were actually part of the wedding. The bridesmaids wore matching gold and red jewelry and the groomsmen all wore gold and dark red velvet suit jackets. 

 

Everything else was up to the person. For example, the maid of honor, Hope van Dyne, managed to pull off wearing an expensive yellow pantsuit and not looking like a McDonalds ad with the red of the jewelry. Hope also managed to pull off messy shoulder-length curls while still looking like she owned the place without really trying. She had too much power. 

 

The previously rogue avengers were technically invited to the wedding, they were using the compound as the venue anyway so it would’ve been overly petty just to not let them come. They were still trying to mend their old bonds but Tony wasn’t comfortable enough to use more than baby steps. So who would’ve once been part of the wedding were now demoted to guests. 

 

Tony and Pepper only chose people that they trusted to be a part of their wedding. Pepper’s bridesmaids were Helen Cho, Maria Hill, Jane Foster and their Wakandan friends, Nakia , Okoye and Princess Shuri, the last of which the boys were excited to meet. A genius princess that was their age? Harley wanted to have her help with a world takeover plan and Peter just wanted to find out how the black panther suit worked. 

 

Wakanda had only just barely opened itself to the world and the only thing they knew was that their tech was mind blowing. It was like disneyland for the Stark nerds. Hopefully if they made friends with the princess, they could go for a visit someday. But that would be just a plus, Shuri seemed like a slightly more extroverted version of Michelle and since their friend group was collectively two more people, more friends would be… nice. 

 

Tony’s chosen groomsmen were obviously his kids, Happy, Bruce Banner, Scott Lang (he had been forgiven for the civil war thing,) Vision, and King T’Challa with Rhodey as his best man. Needless to say, the bachlor party was toned down a little. The adults got a little drunk with Harley and Peter collecting enough blackmail for several decades. Peter had never seen any group of people get along so quickly even though a bunch of them were just acquaintances. After a bit of alcohol they were all suddenly childhood friends. 

 

It took awhile for Tony to figure out how the other roles would be filled. Eventually he got Ant-man’s kid, Cassie, to be the flower girl and he said ‘fuck it’ and decided to make Dum-E the ring bearer. He would never admit how much he actually cared about his bots as they were his only family for a while. He made Dum-E when he was in a really bad place at MIT. He made Dum-E before he even met Rhodey so this little clumsy bot meant a whole lot to him. 

 

Tony just didn’t trust Dum-E to handle the actual rings so he had some fake ones made. Easy fix. 

 

They had a custom wedding dress made, with lace that looked closer to glass fragments than lace. It wasn’t overly ambitious and the fitting was slightly rushed but it was only meant to be worn for a single day so what could go wrong. It managed to not be too uncomfortable while still looking like it’s worth of several thousand dollars. Pepper insisted that she wear the shrapnel necklace that Tony had given her so long ago. 

 

They were almost ready and were only moments away from starting the ceremony and Tony was much more nervous than he thought he would be. It had been a full day since he had seen Pepper and he didn’t like that he didn’t completely know how everything was going. Rhodey kept telling him that everything was fine but Tony wished that he could be sure. What if the people who bombed the school decided to strike again? What if something went wrong on national TV? What if… Rhodey literally had to shake him out of his anxious spiral, which was kind of rude… 

 

“Tones, almost everyone is in place. Everything is taken care of. Stop worrying so much.” Rhodey ordered straightened Tony’s already straight red tie. 

 

“What about Peter and Harley, I haven’t seen them in a while…” Tony said in the nervous voice that rarely anyone heard. 

 

“Last I saw, they were helping Pepper. I don’t think anything was wrong, she was just freaking out more than you are. Come on, before you sweat enough to erase the good work of the makeup artist.”

 

“I don’t sweat honeybear…” Tony scoffed as he tried to calm down. He hoped that everything would turn out fine. 

 

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

Everything was not fine. Pepper said more swears during this incident than she ever had in her life. And that was including during a couple apocalyptic scenarios. Most of her bridesmaids had left to help with last second preparations and only Hope was in the room with her. 

 

Moments before she was supposed to go out and get married to Tony, her dress ripped. The seam on her left shoulder-blade ripped several inches. Enough that she couldn’t hide it with her hair. This was one thing that Hope could not help with. She could be a master martial artist, business woman, Physicist, but however, she could not sew. Apparently she had blocked it out after learning it in a shitty boarding school after her mother died. 

 

It was at this moment, there was a knock at the door. It was Harley. 

 

“Uh, are you okay in there? I heard a lot of frantic screaming…” Harley assumed the worst and didn’t open the door, despite the fact that the wedding was scheduled to start in a few minutes. 

 

“We’re fine… my dress just ripped a little… in a not very easily to hide place… can you find someone who can sew? It’s kind of an emergency…” Pepper asked nervously as she tried again to find a way to hide it with her hair. Unfortunately, it was never long enough. 

 

“I know someone who can sew.” Harley said, muffled behind the door. 

 

“You do?” Hope added with uneven eyebrows. 

 

“Peter can sew. Hopefully it’s not in an awkward place…” Harley chuckled, the sound was easy-going enough to help calm them down. Harley seemed so sure that everything was going to be fine so it was probably okay. 

 

“No, It’s on my shoulder. Go get him, we really don’t have much time left.” Pepper ordered, hoping that her stress wasn’t making her sound too harsh. 

 

“On it boss.” Pepper heard Harley’s little smirk that he had adopted from his father. In a moment he was gone, hopefully soon to be back. 

 

“Peter can sew?” Hope turned back to Pepper, away from the door. 

 

“I’m not that surprised… the kid’s talented.” Pepper smiled. She also knew that Peter had made his first super suit from scratch, and it wasn’t too bad. At least with the materials he had at the time. Peter would definitely have to know how to mend it and make it in the first place so sewing was not completely out of the realm of reality. 

 

“I bet he is.” Soon enough, Harley and Peter came rushing in the room with a tiny sewing kit. 

 

“Sorry, we ran into Rhodey and had to reassure him that everything is chill. Where’s the rip again?” Peter rambled in his rush. Pepper moved her hair to show the rip. Peter didn’t hesitate to get to work. He also managed not to accidentally stab her with the needle and it only took a few minutes to fix the tear. In her relief, Pepper kissed her kids foreheads. Unfortunately, this action left a few red smudges. 

 

“Shit, I forgot about the lipstick… fuck…” In the tenseness of the scenario, everyone managed to laugh. And a few makeup wipes fixed the new problem pretty well anyway. 

 

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

Behind the sound of the organ playing the classic bridal entrance song, another organ filled Tony’s ears. It was the sound of his heart racing. It wasn’t as bad as before as Hope, Harley and Peter were only a few seconds late and they rushed to their spots without calling too much attention to themselves. But now, Pepper was a little late and every second seemed like a century. Finally, Pepper entered, being led in by someone slightly unexpected. 

 

But Tony didn’t care about Nick Fury taking the place of Peppers father as they steadily walked along the aisle. Tony focused on Pepper. In moments she would be his wife and for a weird moment, he was overwhelmed with emotions. 

 

He had heard that when most husbands saw their wifes beauty coming down the aisle they had teared up but it wasn’t just Pepper’s undeniable beauty that caused the emotional reaction. It was the moment that it sunk in that this amazing, smart, perfect woman was completely willing to endure his shit for the foreseeable future and that she wanted to rise to this level in their relationship even after every time he has messed up. 

 

Tony was hit with such overwhelming love for this one person that he was caught a little bit off guard. He couldn’t stop the smile that came to his face when Pepper caught his gaze and smiled with the warmth of a supergiant star. Usually Tony hated the idea of magic but that moment in time was nothing less than magical. For some reason it was a moment that had he hoped would never end, yet it was a very familiar feeling. 

 

He had felt the same way when he woke up to her fallen asleep on the couch with Harley who she had comforted after a nightmare, it was the same feeling that he had when he saw her while he limped off of the plane from Afghanistan, it was the same feeling when they first kissed on the rooftop after fighting a bunch of droids, and it was the same feeling he had when she hugged him after she thought he was dead. The last example had happened a few times. 

 

Of course visuals couldn’t be ignored. Pepper looked beautiful and like a literal angel but it definitely wasn’t the first time. 

 

Eventually, she was close enough to take his hand and walk to the altar. On the other side was Tony’s childhood Rabbi. Although the wedding wasn’t engrained in Tony’s mothers religion, the old man was still the only person Tony could think of doing something as big as officiate his wedding. 

 

“You’re late.” Tony muttered loud enough for only his future wife to hear. He could hear the ceremony start but he couldn’t take his focus off of Pepper. 

 

“You need to be more flexible. I’ll tell you about it later.” Pepper replied in a hushed whisper. “It’s going to be a fun story.” She didn’t seem to intent on going over the wedding script again. They had practiced a week before just to make sure they knew what the hell they were doing. Hint: They did not. It took several tries to get used to it. 

 

“I bet… I guess our boys have something to do with it?” Tony smiled a little. 

 

“They aren’t the cause of it, they’re actually the lifesavers. Now pay attention!” Pepper whispered. 

 

“Do you, Virginia Potts take Anthony Stark to be your lawfully wedded husband?” An important part of dialogue peeked through their hushed conversation.

 

“I do.” Pepper smiled. 

 

“And do you, Anthony Stark, take Virginia Potts to be lawfully wedded wife.” The Rabbi continued. 

 

“Of course I do.” Tony ignored a few more seconds of dialogue, as Pepper whispered something. 

 

“We said no ad-libbing.” She muttered under her breath. 

 

“Two words honey, It wasn’t anything drastic. Wait until we get to our vows.” 

 

“Jesus Christ…” Tony had to swallow a laugh, which kind of hurt. 

 

After an eternity of monologuing, they got to their vows. They weren't too bad. Pepper promised to catch him when he fell and stay with him through thick and thin and all that, Tony surprisingly enough, stayed on script mostly and only added the promise that he won’t let her be injected with any experimental lava virus’ that gives her superpowers. The comment earned a quiet laugh from the crowd. 

 

After the vows, it was Dum-Es time to shine. The single armed robot rolled down the aisle, every once in a while making a little happy beeping. In the bots outstretched arm was the little platter with the rings. Thankfully, for once, Dum-E wasn’t clumsy and didn’t drop the rings or throw them anyway. 

 

Tony put the subly arc reactor shaped ring on Peppers finger after she put the simple gold ring on his and the magic words were spoken. 

 

“I now pronounce you husband and wife! You may kiss the-” However, before the Rabbi could continue, Pepper wrapped her arm around Tony, which only worked smoothly because she was taller than him, and she leaned down a little so that she could kiss him. He smiled as their lips met and closed his eyes as he melted into her touch. 

 

Cheers erupted from behind them and for once, Tony’s ever present looming fear of the future was silenced. If only for a moment or two.

 

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

“I met Tony in college. He was this tiny moody teenager of fifteen, somehow he was smart enough to get into one of the best tech schools at that age. Of course it was a little weird to be friends with him when I am so much older, but Tony was always getting himself into trouble and I just happened to share a dorm with him.” Rhodey started his best man speech at the reception. This was a slightly more private party, no media attention or cameras besides Peter’s. 

 

Everyone had been equipped with food and had been casually talking for a while before Rhodey decided to start his speech. 

 

“I actually first really became friends with Tony when he was getting his butt kicked. Apparently Tony went up against the whole robotics club and won in a contest. See, this was several college age nerds, up against one scrawny rich teenager. And this teenager made a robot that was years ahead of his time to go against a team of people who knew what they were doing. Yeah, the genius kid won and these college students were really not happy about that. I had to get in there to save him because my mama taught me right. And no one wants to fight an aeromechanics major.” A laugh led by Tony enveloped the room. 

 

“Wait, Uncle Rhodey is technically a rocket scientist?” Harley whispered to Peter who snorted. 

 

“From then on, I kinda became this kids bodyguard and eventually, friend. I learned a lot about him while he was doing stupid shit and trying to stay up all night to finish all of his classes as soon as possible.”

 

“I learned that this kid was and is the most passionate person I had ever met. When he finds something, or someone, that he loves, he will do everything in his power to not just protect it, but also to show how much he loved it. This is the kid that cared so much about everyone that after having his heart torn out, he asked for the safety of Pepper. Who at the time, was just his secretary.” This comment seemed to be something that Pepper had never heard and she raised an eyebrow at her husband who shrugged casually. 

 

“I was there when Tony landed on a roof after saving Pepper from the Hammer drone attack and argued for a minute before dramatically making out to the romantic sound of explosion. Tony didn’t know I was there and I didn’t know that it was their first kiss ever. After a whole year of sexual tension, they finally got the hint.” Another fit of laughter with Peter choking on his drink. He whispered to Harley that he had heard Scott’s daughter ask what sexual tension was. 

 

“I may be the person who knows Tony the best, in some ways I know him too much. So without a shadow of a doubt, I know that Tony Stark, billionaire superhero, is the trophy housewife to his CEO husband.” This one made everyone laugh. Not many people could say that Tony was a trophy housewife. The Starks and Rhodey knew though. They definitely knew. 

 

“I would like to conclude with something actually sentimental. Tony is the strongest person I’ve ever met. He has lost everything and could still stand up. However it takes someone else to save him. Most of the time it’s Pepper. And I’m glad that it’s her. Because Tony needs to be rescued like a fairytale princess and I can’t think of anyone better. So, a toast to the knight in shining armor, Pepper Stark!” Rhodey lifted his glass of champagne and everyone followed with the younger members copying with a non alcoholic alternative. 

 

After Rhodey’s speech, Hope went. Although she didn’t know as much about Pepper, she was pretty confident. She praised Pepper in her ability to deal with Tony and congratulated them on their newfound family. 

 

Everyone went back to their food and conversations with every once in a while, a someone coming up to Pepper and/ or Tony to congratulate them. Rhodey told them a story about a finals week in MIT where Tony got so sleep deprived that he tried to make ramen without water and almost set the dorms microwave on fire. This action resulted in Rhodey printing out a reminder to put water in the instant ramen before cooking it. 

 

Pepper also told the story about why she was delayed to go down the aisle with as much drama as she could muster. Tony tried to look frustrated as they had tailored that dress and it couldn’t last one day, but he kept on laughing at the stupidity of it and how Peter had to be the one to the rescue. 

 

Before the party could end though, King T’Challa came over to introduce his sister to them. Apparently he wouldn’t her hack into F.R.I.D.A.Y. and she was a little bit annoyed. 

 

“Hello Tony, I would like to introduce you all to my sister, Shuri.” 

 

“I am not an infant brother. I do not need introductions.” Shuri rolled her eyes. “Greetings colonizers, thank you for giving the king a valid reason to let us do something fun and not focus on ruling a country.” Shuri gave T’Challa a look. 

 

“Hello your highness. I’m glad you both could make it.” Pepper said politely while Tony smirked a little. 

 

“You two, I’ve heard you’re smart. Do you guys have a lab in this building, I’m getting tired of the party.” Shuri looked at Peter and Harley, the later of which just shrugged. 

 

“Thank god, yes. I doubt it’s anything as good as what you have in Wakanda but I would be glad to ditch this place.” Harley said in relief. 

 

“Don’t set anything on fire please.” Tony dismissed them. They had been pretty well behaved the whole time besides hours in fancy dress and probably loud noises for Peter. 

 

“Shit-” Peter yelped as Harley pulled him out of his chair with a little too much enthusiasm. They both led the princess out of the venue and into the private section of the building. Tony made sure to ask F.R.I.D.A.Y. to keep a metaphorical eye on them. 

 

However, on his way out, Peter swore he saw a small beetle-like bug on the ceiling. However with all the excitement, Peter wasn’t sure if his spider-sense was going off so he just ignored it. It would be embarrassing if he was wrong. And the room was literally full of superheroes. How bad could it be?

 

“So, how did you guys get adopted by Iron Man anyway?” Shuri asked as they strolled to the elevator. 

 

“A few strange circumstances. I helped him out a while ago while he was playing dead and Pete here was orphaned at the same time that he was interning for him.” Harley answered. 

 

“I was orphaned when I was six, this was like, Batman backstory 2.0.” Peter joked despite the dark undertones. 

 

“I’ve only lost my father. Compared to you I am lucky.” Shuri shrugged. 

 

“Well, we have a family now so it’s fine. I mean who else can say they’ve been adopted by a-” Harley was interrupted by the sound of a nearby explosion. Shuri yelled something in Wakandan, probably a curse, and none of them hesitated to run towards the source. 

 

They weren’t prepared for the chaos that came afterward.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! I hope you liked this chapter! Leave a comment if you did! (Leave a comment anyway pls, Comments are very good at making me want to write more) If you want to see Pepper in her wedding dress, I drew her and posted it to my tumblr (Science-Lings) so I would appreciate if you wanted to check it out. If anyone has made art inspired by my fics or wants to talk to me, you can find me there or on my writing tumblr (queer-xmen) I'll see you guys next time! BYE, I LOVE YOU!


	12. Isolated

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peter, Harley, and Shuri try to figure out what the hell just happened.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You thought I would leave you here forever, too bad, I'm still writing this baby

“Why do buildings keep falling on me!” Peter yelled as he swatted a TV-sized chunk of smooth concrete from headshotting his brother. Shuri had pulled out panther themed vibranium blasters out of nowhere and shot some larger bits of debris away from them. 

 

The three nerd kids shared a single thought and ran as fast as they could back to the trashed wedding venue. Peter launched himself into the doors and they broke off like they were made of styrofoam. As expected, the barely standing room looked like it had either once contained a tornado or one of Tony’s experiments. The two walls that had once been windows had been completely destroyed with the roof falling in many places. 

 

The odd thing was, out of so many superheroes and people that had once been chatting and visiting in the large room were just… gone. There weren’t any bodies, there wasn’t outside that they could see, the most powerful people on the earth had disappeared without a trace. It looked like no one had even been in the room. 

 

The teenagers froze in place. All of the Avengers were nowhere to be found, did they get out? How did they get so many people out so fast? After a long fragile moment of silence, it was broken by a muffled breathless cry of pain that sounded like it came from under a large slab of concrete. 

 

Peter didn’t hesitate to gently lift up the chunk of rock and see who was left. Still in a frilly, now damaged and dirty, red dress, was little Cassie Lang. She had tear stained cheeks and a gash on her leg as well as a smaller cut on her dust-covered face. Harley helped her up and ended up carrying her with her injured leg. 

 

“What happened to everyone…” Shuri muttered as she looked around the room in hope that her brother would show up. 

 

“It was magic!” Cassie claimed. Even though she seemed to be in a lot of pain, she was still loud and expressive. 

 

“What did it look like Ant-ling?” The Wakandan Princess prompted urgently.

 

“I don't’ know, it was bright so I closed my eyes!” She exclaimed and looked around as if barely noticing what happened. “Where’s daddy?” 

 

Nobody had an answer for her or even an idea of what the hell happened. The feeling of shock was strong for everyone. But after the shock wore off, only fear remained. 

 

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

“FRIDAY is out, cameras are down, we literally only have power for the freezer… How’s your cell service?” Harley entered the safest area of the compound, the workshop. Peter was taking care of Cassie’s wounds and Shuri seemed to be trying to make the power work. Apparently, the huge arc reactor powering the place had been damaged and took out the backup at the same time. Or at least that’s what they thought. None of them knew where the backup was and out of everything was only powering the freezer. The Avengers must’ve had ice cream as a high priority. 

 

“We’re out of range by a long shot. This place is supposed to be off the grid.” Shuri answered. “A lot of good that does us now.”

 

“We could use your vibranium ship?” Peter suggested. “At least to get Cassie to her step-dad.”

 

“No! I want to find my daddy!” Cassie folded her arms stubbornly. 

 

“We don’t have time to fly to California to drop her off. Everyone could be in trouble.” Shuri insisted. 

 

“Okay, Harley, you’re on babysitting duty. You’re the only one who has had a younger sibling.” Peter announced. “First thing’s first though. We have to fix the power. Then maybe we can access FRIDAY and the security cameras.” 

 

“Then we can figure out who kidnaped the Avengers,” Shuri confirmed, avoiding the use of any personal titles out of fear that the implications would sink in. They were all still in a little bit of denial, their families were missing and they were all alone with an injured kid to take care of. They were a lot less talkative and a lot more serious than they would normally be. Trauma tended to insight that reaction. 

 

“Dad created it with a handful of trash right?” Peter said nervously as the group made their way down to the compounds power source. 

 

“Yeah… this’ll be easy…” Harley muttered as Peter helped him over a particularly vertical piece of debris and he helped Shuri, who was protectively holding Cassie, with the same obstacle. 

 

“You have no faith, from what I have heard, you are both not idiots and you have me,” Shuri said confidently before almost tripping on a chunk of rock that Peter had to catch her and the kid in her arms. 

 

“You sure about that princess?” Peter smirked. 

 

“Shut up.” Shuri punched him with her available arm. If he wasn’t enhanced, he probably would have bruised. 

 

“Stop flirting in front of the children.” Harley hollered from a few dozen feet away as he had gotten ahead of them. 

 

“Cassie had to hang out with Scott and Hope at a wedding, I think it’s you with a problem.” Peter snarked back. 

 

“You’re right, just because we don’t have adult supervision doesn’t mean you can do whatever you want.” Harley teased as he tried to kick down a metal door. 

 

“Harley what the hell-” Peter exclaimed with his cheeks turning red which made Harley grin. 

 

“Boys!” Shuri shouted. “Stop goofing off! T’Challa is gone and so are your parents I guess. Cassie, why are you so quiet?” 

 

“It’s like watching the tv. You guys are funny.” Cassie said simply while looking back and forth between them all. 

 

“Peter I need you to break down this door.” 

 

“Is that all I’m good for these days…” Peter sighed as he walked over to the metal door and decked it. It fell back with a deep indent. Peter shook his fist and hissed a little with a tiny ‘ow…’ 

 

“Cool,” Harley said as he walked in and looked at the not glowing shell of the massive arc reactor. Thankfully it didn’t look completely irreparable and a little less touched by the explosion.

 

“We have got some work to do.” Shuri sighed as she gently put Cassie down on a chair-sized piece of concrete. Harley put down Tony’s portable toolbox and tossed Shuri the backup blueprint that is not digital. Peter started to clear the debris that had obstructed the reactor. 

 

It was odd how well they all worked together. Harley did most of the actual repairing while Peter did the heavy lifting and Shuri advised him on what to do. Cassie was surprisingly good at avoiding awkward silences as everyone else was so focused. They got the job done in a half hour without much miscommunication. 

 

“We just need to give it a bit of a jumpstart…” Harley said.

 

“I have taser webs,” Peter suggested as he looked through the web cartridges on his right web-shooter.

 

“That’ll probably work.” Shuri shrugged. That was permission enough for Peter to shoot a web at the large donut-shaped piece of technology. After a quick bolt of electricity, the reactor began to dimly glow blue and the building seemed to gain power again. Mostly, the lights flickered and it took a minute for the reactor to start up again but in any case, they succeeded. 

 

“Okay… now we have to figure out what the hell happened.”

 

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

Because it would take all night for FRIDAY to restart and collect the footage from hours before, everyone decided that the best thing to do was to sleep. So they did or at least they tried. Everyone did. Except for Peter. Even when he was so exhausted that his eyes blurred. 

 

Because when it sunk in, he realized that it happened again. What he had been afraid of since being adopted. By now it was easier to think of it as a curse. It just kept happening and it was practically inevitable. Everyone who had the misfortune of taking him in ended up dead. Peter had a hint of hopelessness telling him that that’s what happened to his new set of parents. 

 

But he had always been the optimist. And he had always been known to never give up and all that shit. But losing three sets of parents couldn’t be a coincidence. It couldn’t be blamed on ‘Parker luck’ because he technically wasn’t a Parker anymore. Whatever it was, the worry was keeping him awake. There was a tiny logical cell in his brain trying to convince him that it wasn’t his fault that all of the Avengers were just gone and that he probably didn’t have anything to do with. 

 

Eventually, he fell asleep, but not for long. Less than an hour later, Peter woke up in a cold sweat, panting. Normally When this happened, FRIDAY would wake Tony up and he would come to Peter’s room to talk him through his nightmare. But he didn’t come that night. 

 

Falling back asleep was the hardest battle that he had fought but at about four a.m. he managed it. It felt like it was ten seconds later when he was being shaken aggressively by little hands. 

 

“Peter wake up! The big computer is awake!” the kid squealed and Peter tried not to wince because of his sensitive hearing. 

 

“I’m awake, I’m awake…” Peter groaned and opened his eye that wasn’t pressed against the pillow. 

 

“Come on!” Cassie tried to drag Peter out of bed which worked more than he thought it would, with a few tugs and she managed to roll him over towards her. He decided to co-operate and trudge out of the bed with her still gripping his hoodie sleeve. 

 

“You said that the computer is awake?”

 

‘Hello Peter.’ the AI said in a slightly less chipper voice than usual. ‘I took the liberty to analyze the footage from last night and I am sorry to say that I couldn’t identify how everyone was taken or where they were taken but I am sure that they are all alive. It was definitely some type of instant transportation.’

 

“Thanks, Fri… Is it nothing like we’ve seen before? Like was it more like portals or more like star trek? And can you send me a list of everyone who was taken? I hope we didn’t miss anyone in the rubble…” 

 

“Ms. Lang seems to be the only one not taken aside from you darn teenagers. There were no life signs or biological matter in the ballroom.”

 

“Cool, at least that means no one is confirmed dead.” Peter tried to sound hopeful if not for his own sake, for Cassie’s. “Tell Harley that if we have to babysit then he has to make breakfast.” 

 

‘I’ll make sure to pass along the message.’ 

 

“I’m not a baby!” Cassie protested. 

 

“Yeah, but you aren’t independent and your caretakers are either thousands of miles away or kidnapped by some mysterious unknown force.” Peter pointed out as he made his way to the workshop, slightly dragging Cassie along. 

 

“Do you guys have pop tarts?” 

 

“Nah, I’ll make Harley cook some breakfast, he’s the only one that knows how eggs work,” Peter remarked.

 

“Eggs aren’t that confusing,” Cassie argued. 

 

“Compared to theoretical physics, eggs are freaking complicated.” Peter joked. “You can cook them in the exact same way and they’ll turn out differently.”

 

“You’re a liar.” 

 

“At least I’m not as bad as Tony… he can make authentic Italian food that’s been passed down for generations but when it comes to omelets… oof…” Peter only slightly exaggerated, making Cassie laugh. 

 

“Good morning sleepyhead, we tried using FRIDAY to wake you up but it didn’t work so we had to send the demon,” Shuri said as they entered the workshop, Cassie just smiled sweetly. 

 

“Well, at least that worked. Did you find anything helpful?” Peter looked around at the glowing holoscreens scattered around the workshop that all showed different shots from security cameras. They all replayed multiple views of the explosion. 

 

“Kind of. I found a scan of the tiny bomb before it detonated and I’ve been trying to track its origin but it’s kind of hard purely based on scans. Also, I think the explosion was more of a cover-up for the disappearances of the wedding guests. There’s not much we can do with only the aftermath and video footage. Nobody here is an expert on magic or whatever the hell the transports are. I’ve never seen anything like it.” Shuri explained as she pointed out the videos of people disappearing in flashes of light in slow motion. 

 

‘Harley says he is finished with breakfast. I would advise not mentioning the excessive use of eggs.’ FRIDAY interrupted. 

 

“You guys go ahead, I want to look at the footage a little bit…” Peter remarked as he brought one of the holographic screens closer to his face. 

 

“I wouldn’t get your hopes up on finding anything. But go ahead, waste your time.” Shuri dismissed and took Cassie’s hand. Cassie limped a little from her injury but didn’t seem like the kind of kid to constantly complain so that was a small mercy. At least if they had to babysit, they got a good kid. 

 

Peter looked through the footage a few extra times and tried to jumpstart his still groggy head. The magic came out of nowhere and only a split second before the explosion. The camera quality wasn’t good enough to take much from it. He desperately looked for any pixel out of place in hopes that it would be the key to finding his family. 

 

Thankfully, the clue was more obvious. And a little scarier. First, all the lights in the compound flickered in unison and FRIDAY refused to answer Peter’s questions. Then all of the glowing holographic screens turned from a light arc reactor blue to an ominous red. So that was pretty creepy. 

 

The screens went blank and slowly started to type out a mess of numbers and letters and it took Peter an embarrassingly long time to realize that they were coordinates. The simple line of numbers was followed by a short message, ‘looked like you needed a little help’ 

 

Peter had a sneaking suspicion that it was a trap from the bad guy trying to lure them in but he didn’t think he had much of a choice. All of the Avengers were gone. And there were no other hints for their location.

 

Peter normally didn’t believe in only having one choice but they had one lead. And he was going to go for it, after some team negotiation. Because it would be pretty important to actually talk to the people who were working with him to save their families and everyone else that was less important.

 

Peter recorded the coordinates and he left to go get breakfast and give the new information to the team of teenagers and a small child. They were no Avengers but they were all that the real Avengers had. 

 

And that would have to be enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for leaving you guys hanging for so long, anyway, I would love feedback. Do you guys like the direction that this is taking? I hope so lol. My tumblrs have changed to Science-lings, sciencelings-writes, sciencelings-arts. It's a little easier to keep track of. Now that I have three ongoing fics and constant prompts that I'm working on, it'll be harder to keep a decent schedule so I apologize for all of that. 
> 
> Anyway, I'll see you soon! Thanks for reading this far!


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